Director Maggie Gyllenhaal captures memorable nuances of motherhood in Netflix’s “The Lost Daughter,” streaming now. The film, based on Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, “The Lost Daughter,” stars Olivia Colman as Leda, the main character.
I liked Colman as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Crown,” the drama series about the British monarch, on Netflix. I found much more to enjoy about her delightful acting in “The Lost Daughter.”
In this film, Leda, an academic who needs quiet to research and write while vacationing, sees Nina on the beach with her extended family. For reasons that become clear, Leda cannot take her eyes off Nina, a young mother and her daughter.
Dakota Johnson speaks volumes with her eyes and face as she portrays Nina. Like Leda a generation earlier, Nina is overwhelmed with the 24/7 labor of child rearing.
The daughters of Leda and Nina, separated by place and time, have similar personality characteristics. A shorthand description of these three young girls is that they are emotionally demanding.
Therein lies the core conflict of “The Lost Daughter.” The film by first-time director Gyllenhaal speaks to women’s social role as providers of reproductive labor services to children and the adult males.
As young mothers, Leda and Nina handle the emotional stress of their lives as household caregivers in part through promiscuity. Casual sex dulls the young mothers’ pain, so to speak.
“The Lost Daughter” deploys flashbacks of Leda’s life to push forward the narrative. It is an effective technique to tell this tale of distress, past and present.
As we live our lives in the present, we recall the past. We take a step forward then step backward.
Seeing the interior thoughts of a fictional character like Leda looking backward works if for no other reason than it resembles our lived experiences. Days turn into months, years and decades.
The past, as author William Faulkner observed, is never past. In excruciating detail, we see the daily and hourly challenges of the young Leda mothering with scant help while trying to pursue an academic career.
We see the older Leda recalling that trying time with no small measure of regret. Who among us can say, honestly, we are free from such thoughts of yesterday’s hurt, real and imagined?
To use an American football metaphor, we are Monday morning quarterbacks after a Sunday game. That is, we look back on the past with the wisdom of experience that eluded us in our younger lives.
Leda has returned to a troubled past with her daughters so frequently, the process manifests itself in the present with quite bizarre behavior towards a prized possession of Nina’s daughter. In short, Leda is a rational professor who acts irrationally when the spirit moves her.
In the meantime, Ed Harris, the venerable character actor, sparkles as a seasoned blue-collar worker who takes an interest in Leda. She is not ready to reciprocate, though.
As I see it, “The Lost Daughter” captures the choices and lack of them available to some women who become mothers, who experience this social structure personally. At press time, Colman and Gyllenhaal had won recognition for their efforts in “The Lost Daughter” at the 31st Annual Gotham Awards, and I expect such critical esteem for their work to continue.
Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2022
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