Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
Written by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Elena Ferrante, based on Ferrante’s novel
Starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Dagmara Dominczyk, Ed Harris
Runtime: 2 hours 1 minutes
Rated R
Now streaming on Netflix

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer and Associate Editor

Recently I rewatched Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, a sharp comedy/drama based on the things that desperate people will do for money. Specifically, drug prospective clients of strip clubs and charge their credit cards. It stars Jennifer Lopez in a role that everyone argued would have given her the Oscar but of course it didn’t. In it, Jennifer Lopez’s character, Ramona, tells Destiny (Constance Wu), also a mother, that “motherhood is a mental illness.”

That line circles in my head throughout Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter. The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman as Leda, a woman who takes a solo vacation on the beaches of Greece. She rents a room from the affable Lyle (Ed Harris), and intends to grade papers while enjoying the quiet serenity of the beach. But something stirs her. She comes upon a pair of sisters. One is the 42-year-old Callie (Dagmara Domińczyk, “Succession”) who is 7 months pregnant, and Nina (Dakota Johnson), who has a three-year-old daughter. Leda originally balks at the requests of these beachgoers to move her umbrella so their whole family can sit together. But they warm up to her, offering her birthday cake. Callie asks of Leda, do you have children? Two grown daughters, she says. Callie implores why they did not accompany Leda on her trip. Leda does not respond.

The plot, such as it is, starts to develop when Nina’s young daughter loses her doll at the beach, and Leda finds it and holds onto it. These scenes are spliced with flashbacks of young Leda (Jessie Buckley), struggling to maintain patience raising two young daughters with a less-than-supportive partner (Jack Farthing). We see moments of joy, but we see moments of extreme stress. When Leda needs a break, her partner needs to take a phone call. One daughter tests her boundaries by slapping her. Another takes Leda’s treasured childhood doll and defaces it. Buckley doesn’t bear much resemblance to Colman, so it’s hard to places these scenes at first. The film also leaves what happened between Leda and her daughters a mystery to such extent that we suspect that there is death involved. It makes The Lost Daughter feel much more like a mystery/thriller than a drama. Gyllenhaal proves a capable director, and the supporting performances here are stellar. Dakota Johnson in particular delivers a layered performance with a small amount of scenes, as well as Paul Mescal (“Normal People”), who commends Leda for refusing to remove her umbrella, but tells her not to do it again. “They’re bad people,” he warns.

The Lost Daughter reminded me, in part, of Diablo Cody’s earnest but misguided Tully. Both are frank and unflinching in their portrayal on how hard motherhood is, and what it does to your sense of self. But like Tully, the tone here is a mismatch. In the film’s final moments, we don’t feel sympathy as much as we feel dread. A scene of mutual understanding and emotional reveals erupts into violence, rather unnecessarily.

To establish a different look to the flashback scenes, instead of using different lighting or color or some other technique, shots are close, which ends up making the flashback scenes less intimate, instead of more. Buckley is a great actress, but she feels obscured in flashback scenes. At two hours, The Lost Daughter has some disposable scenes. The purpose of a scene where a young Leda and her partner welcome a pair of hitchhikers is clear, but it takes a while to get there. Colman ultimately anchors it all, and our sympathy for her is unwavering. We accept her, even if we might not understand her. We see the quiet, muted heartbreak on her face while she calls one of her daughters on the phone. She loves them, but something is missing. Love is there, but it wasn’t the love she expected. The Lost Daughter is a complicated, blunt portrayal of motherhood, but its inconsistencies in tone and pacing hold it back from truly leaving an impression.