The Lost Daughter film review: American actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s debut as writer and director
Talented American actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s debut as writer and director, an adaptation of the short novel by Elena Ferrante, couldn’t be more impressive. It is a masterclass in measured and emotionally intelligent filmmaking, helped enormously by outstanding performances from a classy cast, most notably from Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley who play older and younger versions of the principal character Leda.
The film opens in the present day with the middle-aged Leda arriving on holiday on a Greek island. She is vacationing solo and it seems to be a bit of working holiday – it transpires she is a Yorkshire-born academic (“from Leeds, well Shipley actually”), specialising in comparative literature and holds a professorship at Harvard. Her sojourn begins quietly – she appears to be happy in her own company, and clearly enjoys the solitude of the comfortable apartment. On the beach she marks students’ work while observing the other holidaymakers around her.
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Hide AdAmong them is a large, boisterous Italian-American family – several generations, children and grandparents. Leda is curious while a little resentful of their disturbing her peace – and is not minded to be accommodating when they ask her to move so that they can all sit together. That turns out to be a bad move – these are people not necessarily to be messed with. Leda is particularly interested in Nina (Dakota Johnson) a young mother with a little daughter in tow and a tempestuous relationship with her flashy husband. Then the little girl goes missing which prompts a frantic search in which Leda is involved. She finds the girl and is embraced, literally and metaphorically, by the family. The little girl, however, is distraught as somehow her favourite doll has mysteriously vanished.
The incident prompts Leda to think back on her own relationship with her two daughters, now adults, from whom she seems to be somewhat estranged. In flashback, with Buckley now playing Leda, we learn of the tension within her as she tries to combine motherhood with her fledgling academic career. She struggles to make her mark while caring for two children under school age – and feels guilty about her irritability and lack of maternal feeling. Meanwhile, her husband, a fellow academic, has no such worries.
Back in the present day, Leda makes some odd missteps, one in particular, that combine to create a gradual, almost imperceptible rise in narrative tension, expertly handled by Gyllenhaal, and eventually leading to a brilliantly understated, and unsettling, conclusion.