“The Lost Daughter” is the new Netflix drama film that marks the debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal as a director and writer, based on the book with the same name written by Elena Fernández and starring Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris and Paul Mescal.
The plot revolves around Leda (Olivia Colman) a forty-something British literature professor who goes on holiday to Greece during the summer to work on her new lecture project. During her holiday at the beach hotel, she becomes obsessed about the young mother Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her kid Elena , and that fact brings back to her life painful memories of her motherhood.
Gyllenhaal demystifies the traditional concepts and idealisation of motherhood that women were born to be mothers spotlighting Leda, a protagonist who abandoned her daughters in the past because she didn’t feel fulfilled assuming the mother’s role to her life.
The narrative is divided between present and past through flashbacks and features a lot of metaphors and subtexts. Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley who play Leda in two moments of her life are triumphant and honestly the best asset in the movie.
Although the plot explores an original idea and confronts bravery the social motherhood taboo, adding a stunning photography aesthetic and a stellar casting, the screenplay could have been best tailored going deeper into Leda’s conflicts, traumas and regrets. Also it should have created a better plot twist and final resolution. I haven’t read the book to compare them, but that’s my humble opinion about it.
I wish I could have fallen in love with the narrative because is a great movie, but the lack of those things I’ve said above made me not get caught by it.
Watch the trailer:
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