The Lost Daughter

Its always worth noticing when someone takes the opportunity when making a film to tackle a topic often left unmentioned in prior examples. While films have come a long way in terms of including diversity and showing stories from multiple different perspectives, more often than not, they were not as commonly used in films of old and could be trivialized to a lazy degree. Stories that managed to discuss topics that were considered taboo at the time were still seen as either just ‘’scratching the surface’’ or faced mixed reception from unaware viewers, and one such topic that has only recently started to come into play is the struggles of motherhood. Once associated with the peak of kindness and self-sacrifice, good mothers were expected to dote on their children and any who wanted anything more either were deemed villains or had to be put back into place for wanting a job or a life of her own. The Lost Daughter takes a new step in acknowledging something about motherhood that isn’t as glossy and perfect as it has been displayed for so many years. While on holiday in Greece, college professor Leda (played by Olivia Colman) hopes for a simple quiet vacation alone, but this is quickly interrupted by a large family that practically take over the beach-side. In this group, Leda meets a young mother named Nina (played by Dakota Johnson) who she discovers is slowly starting to have reservation about her life as a single mother and quietly resents the pain and stress it puts on her. This hits harder than expected as Leda recollects on her own decisions when she was younger (played then by Jessie Buckley) and also silently despised having to look after her two daughters without much assistance, which eventually led to her abandoning them all. Seeing things repeating right in front of her, Leda stoops so low as to steal Nina’s daughter’s favorite doll as a means of vicariously reliving her old ways, all the while paranoia starts to build up in the people around her. Based on a novel written by Elana Ferrante, The Lost Daughter released on Netflix in late 2021, and earned critical underground praise and also three nominations at the Academy Awards.

In terms of tackling a new topic, this movie talks about the pressures and crushing responsibility that comes with being a mother (which has been talked about before), but the extra step it takes to make her actually coldly leave her children for her own aspirations makes this a wildly different film to look at. Instead of acting as another uplifting tale about overcoming strife and finding the joys of being a mother, this one takes a dramatically cynical look at how draining it can be on a person and how that often times leads them to make bad decisions. Unlike other examples of neglectful and abandoning mothers who are solely seen as simplistic selfish villains, this movie portrays her in a realistic and unfortunately honest manner and doesn’t paint an obvious good and evil line, but rather presents these individuals women as flawed, scared, and unsure about what is more important to them, the expected yet gently secure life of motherhood, or the free yet selfish route of open life. Being a first time in the directing chair for Maggie Gyllenhaal, this is a pretty effective first try; with good pacing, a solid handling of mature topics and morally grey people and writing that can sometimes be a little hammer on the head but still manages to weave this tale together in an effective way. The way it flashes between the present and the past very cleverly ties both stories together in a way that highlights both the sins of the past, the regrets of the present and the fear of the future. Through such a simple image as a discarded children’s doll existing fine on the outside but through constant pressure from her owner (a child) grows rotten and dirty inside, it actually makes for a great metaphor and arguably the strongest image of the film. The movie does strikingly feel much like an independent film and even lower budget which definitely doesn’t feel like a bad thing as a story like this probably benefits from the look and feel, but it does mean that it can feel a little niche in quality and might come across as dull to some.

For a movie like this, there needs to be a very tight balance between writing your characters aware of the wrong actions they did, but not turn them into one-note versions of the good or bad side. You also need to make sure that it doesn’t go too far into one of the other as these people aren’t entirely good or aren’t entirely evil. The main character is very important in this regard as having your focus being about a woman who abandoned her young children and her husband to have an affair and pursue her own dreams isn’t exactly a great person to follow for a film, but the movie doesn’t necessary ask to relate and accept her, but rather understand and experience what happens when someone like that decides something of that magnitude. Olivia Colman is placed with this role and she as usual gives a very good performance as the woman who did this extreme act and is grieving time lost both as a person and as a mother. She is selfish and even a little hysterical in parts, but it never comes across as too evil (probably helped out by Colman’s natural wholesomeness). On the flip side, Jessie Buckley does a fantastic job as the younger version of the lead , giving the character a great more deal of depth and arguably provided a more complex and intricate portrayal than Colman herself. Dakota Johnson also does a great job as the younger generation mother going through a similar pain as Colman and even grappling with that awful decision of wanting to run away from this pain, it’s a movie that has very well written female characters. The flip-side to this is that most of the male characters in this film are not very interesting at all. This isn’t a fault of the acting as people like Paul Mescal and Ed Harris are all fine, but rather they are just written as very basic characters and they aren’t given a lot of screen-time. It is important to make your female leads engaging and interesting as they are the focus, but there should still be time to flesh out some of the male characters in an equally as effective way (especially someone like Paul Mescal as the main character’s past husband).

As a film that has gotten certain Oscar buzz, it definitely feels like it sits on a more independent area than other Oscar-bait films (even ones that were strictly released on Netflix). While the movie does benefit from some of these aspects, there are times when the lower budget of the film does come through in a not-so-perfect manner. The opening act is a little shaky and poorly put together due to the cinematography by Hélène Louvart being way too obsessed with extreme close ups and doing them in a shaky cam manner which makes it incredibly hard to see what’s going on. Usually, these shots and angles have a purpose behind them, and the movie does get more purposeful and less intrusive with its shots as it goes along, but in the opening act, it feels weirdly sloppy and not that focused and tight. Throughout the whole movie, a lot of the locations aren’t shown off very well and most of the shots are restricted to very close tight shots, which shows that they didn’t have enough of a budget to have proper establishing shots or bigger sets to shoot on. Stuff like that and the B-list actors list (this isn’t a sign of their quality, but rather their status in films), the subdued musical score by Dickon Hinchliffe , the subject matter, and the fact that this is a first-time directing job, it probably didn’t have as much confidence put into it in comparison to other Oscar films of its type. Its impressive how the film manages to fight through these issues in a good enough way through its writing, acting, and directing, but they are noticeable blemishes.

Though not many people will have noticed it since it was not heavily advertised and has been kept behind the streaming service wall, The Lost Daughter is a pretty good film that shows a side to motherhood that a lot of people don’t want to talk about and shows a woman who is stuck with this awful decision and lives with it even years later, to the point where she can even see it growing in someone else. The movie isn’t perfect , and it does feel like a very specific film that won’t work for everybody, but with a great directing job, wonderfully written and acted female characters and a style that while messy in parts, works in the quieter more personal moments to stand out much stronger. Decide for yourself if you’d like this film and see if this mother is deserving of still holding that title after what she did.