Katie Manzer
The Lost Daughter (2021). Dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal
"Children are a crushing responsibility... Happy birthday!"
Based upon the novel of the same name, The Lost Daughter is the feature directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal and stars Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley. The film tells the story of Leda (Colman), a middle-aged woman on a solo vacation in Greece who encounters Nina (Johnson), a young mother struggling to care for her daughter. Weaved throughout the film are numerous flashbacks to Leda as a young woman (Buckley) displaying a similar struggle with her own daughters. In the present day, the two mothers begin to bond after Leda finds Nina’s daughter who gets lost at the beach, but Leda has secretly stolen the girl’s favourite doll.
First and foremost, this film is a character portrait and it is not a flattering one. Leda is a complex and flawed character who is repeatedly shown to be selfish and thoughtless, given that the inciting incident of the film involves her stealing an important item from a child for no reason. At the same time, the audience cannot help but empathize with her mentality, as we are given insight into her past and the aspects of her life that cause her to act out in an increasingly childish manner. As a study of Leda’s psychology, the character’s unlikeability may impact one’s enjoyment of the film as a whole, depending upon how much empathy one can lend to someone who may not deserve it. This discomfort, however, is a testament to Gyllenhaal’s filmmaking, as one feels so easily immersed in Leda’s perspective, despite truly knowing very little about her intentions, that we can feel so strongly about her poor decision making.
Gyllenhaal opts for a more natural, almost neorealist approach to the filmmaking, given its psychological storytelling, on-location shooting, small budget, and limited cast. Gyllenhaal’s documentarian eye can be seen through her repeated emphasis on closeup shots and her preference for handheld camerawork. At times, the shakiness combined with the closeness of the camera to the film’s subject is distracting, as images can become abstracted to the point of non-recognition. The film’s editing also does considerable heavy lifting in cohering this complex story by intercutting scenes from the past and present. The fact that Colman and Buckley look and sound nothing alike despite playing the same character is almost completely obscured by the excellent association and inference done by the editing, as well as the powerhouse performances by the two actresses. At times, these extensive flashback sequences feel as though they are interrupting the more interesting story taking place in the present, though Buckley’s captivating presence helps make up for this.
In its attempts to display the suffocating nature of parenthood, and motherhood in particular, The Lost Daughter paints a portrait both of someone who is left traumatized and someone currently drowning in the responsibility. Though the film can be difficult to watch or even enjoy at times, Gyllenhaal put together a brutally honest yet subtle thriller that will speak to anyone who has experienced emotional exhaustion.
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