X
- 2021
- R
- 2 h 1 m
- 2021
- R
- 2 h 1 m
Summary Alone on a seaside vacation, Leda (Olivia Colman) becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. Unnerved by their compelling relationship, (and their raucous and menacing extended family), Leda is overwhelmed by her own memories of the terror, confusion and intensity of early motherhood. An impulsive...
Directed By: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Written By: Elena Ferrante, Maggie Gyllenhaal
- 2021
- R
- 2 h 1 m
- 2021
- R
- 2 h 1 m
The Lost Daughter
6.2
Where to Watch
Summary Alone on a seaside vacation, Leda (Olivia Colman) becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. Unnerved by their compelling relationship, (and their raucous and menacing extended family), Leda is overwhelmed by her own memories of the terror, confusion and intensity of early motherhood. An impulsive...
Directed By: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Written By: Elena Ferrante, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 51 Critic Reviews
86
94% Positive
48 Reviews
48 Reviews
6% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 51 Critic Reviews
86
94% Positive
48 Reviews
48 Reviews
6% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The movie captures the spirit of the novel well. It’s suspenseful, but it’s not a thriller; there are elements of obsession and eroticism, but they never quite go where you expect. The end is deeply ambiguous, neither punishing nor condoning its characters’ behavior. It simply asks us to sit with them — to pay them the respect of attention, and learn something about ourselves in the process.
The Lost Daughter leaves you haunted, shaken, and crushingly scarred like only the best of films are capable of doing.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 149 User Ratings
6.2
57% Positive
85 Ratings
85 Ratings
18% Mixed
27 Ratings
27 Ratings
25% Negative
37 Ratings
37 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 149 User Ratings
6.2
57% Positive
85 Ratings
85 Ratings
18% Mixed
27 Ratings
27 Ratings
25% Negative
37 Ratings
37 Ratings
With The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal easily proves her talent and instinct as a director by unflinchingly infusing a great story with her own ideas and images‚ and assembling an unbeatable cast and crew (including Happy as Lazzaro and Never Rarely Sometimes Always cinematographer Hélène Louvart) to bring it home.
Gyllenhaal’s extraordinary direction, paired with exceptional performances from The Lost Daughter’s lead actresses, culminate in a perfect storm that yields an astute portrait of the painful expectations of womanhood.
It’s a movie that, in adapting a novel by Ferrante, indicates the grievous lack in the current cinema of dramas that do what is done all the time in literary fiction: consider women’s lives in intimate detail and in the light of wide-ranging, deep-rooted experience.
I’m not convinced, on balance, that Gyllenhaal’s delicious drama is finally much more than a storm in a teacup. But what a cup, what a storm. When Hurricane Colman blows in from the sea, be sure your roof’s in good shape and that all the windows are fastened.
For a while, Olivia Colman’s expressive performance carries the film, with little narrative distraction or stylistic conspicuousness.
WTF! I sat in silence for 10 minutes afterwards. I cannot get this film out my head and had to watch immediately the next day. The 2nd time was even better, it’s not an easy film or subject matter and requires some patience. I liked being challenged to think and feel outside my comfort zone. What I also love is the ambiguity, I believe each person will come away from the film with a different reaction depending on their life experiences. But my biggest question of all is how is Olivia Colman so real and expressive? I have never witnessed a human being capable of conveying as many emotions on the screen. She is just on another level.
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The always reliably brilliant Olivia Colman stars as a middle-aged mother on vacation in Greece who is troubled by haunting memories of her past incidents of motherhood with her own two daughters after meeting another young mother (Dakota Johnson) at the beach. Marking the writing/directorial debut for Maggie Gyllenhaal, this is a slow-burn film, albeit a not particularly exciting or compelling one unfortunately. Fine performances are given from all involved, not least by Colman, who never disappoints. Supporting players such as Johnson, Jessie Buckley, and Ed Harris also give worthwhile turns here, but they can't quite compensate for a general lack of spark or guidance in plot or direction. The film does something that's more often than not been a pet peeve of mine, which is it jumps back and forth between past and present through many flashback scenes. The film also simply kind of ends without really resolving or telling us much of anything other than being a parent is hard I guess. Overall, brilliant performances but a rather straightforward and wandering storyline
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(Mauro Lanari)
Continuous close-ups of stressed and dissatisfied women ("depression?") while they compare their crises, an alternating montage of past and present of the most cultured of them, a university lecturer in Cambridge who, although infatuated with the existentialist absurd, becomes wife and mother to then mistreat and abandon for three years her two little daughters, guilty of havin' hindered her in career realization and extramarital affair. Emotional and psychological secrets exaggerated by the literary and intellectual matrix, found interesting by a Maggie Gyllenhaal in her feature debut for reasons that don't interest me.
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Production Company
Endeavor Content,
Samuel Marshall Films,
Pie Films,
Faliro House Productions
Release Date Dec 17, 2021
Duration 2 h 1 m
Rating R
Genres
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 3 Nominations
Golden Globes, USA
• 2 Nominations
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
• 1 Win & 9 Nominations
