OSCARS 2022: The Lost Daughter (2021)

When a famous star makes a leap from acting to directing, you're never entirely sure what to expect. Sometimes such a switch results in a celebrity directing their own vanity project. Sometimes it's a talented performer trying out something they've always been curious about. Occasionally, it becomes a second career for them. Beloved character actress Maggie Gyllenhaal has producer credits on a few films, making the shift to directing seem like a natural choice. While there's no way to know for sure right now, the critical acclaim that has met “The Lost Daughter” seems to suggest she may have as rich a career behind the camera as she has had in front of it. It's not too often a director's first movie receives three Oscar nominations, after all.

Based off the novel by Elena Ferrante, the film follows Leda, a middle-age professor of Italian literature who is vacationing in Greece. While sitting on a crowded beach, Leda meets Nina, a woman with a three-year old daughter vacationing with her obnoxious family. The little girl goes missing and Leda finds her, causing a strange friendship to form between the women. Leda sees a lot of herself in Nina, especially in her tense relationship with her little daughter. This causes Leda to reflect on the time she abandoned her two daughters when they were young, to begin a five year long affair with a work colleague. As the past seems to repeat itself, Leda's obsession with the younger woman increases.

“The Lost Daughter” is an incredibly uncomfortable film-going experience. Most of the movie is devoted to Olivia Colman – absolutely committed to playing this deeply unhappy person – having the worst vacation of her life. Her quiet day on the beach is interrupted by a loud family showing up, later demanding she moves. Her hotel is right next to a noisy foghorn that shines its light into her window. The complimentary fruit in a basket in the room rots. She awkwardly attempts to hit on Ed Harris, who seems to pity her. She gets insulted by teenagers and has a giant pinecone fall on her back. This intense discomfort peaks during a miserable experience at a movie theater. A group of rowdy teenagers disrupt the screening and, after she publicly chastise the kids, they humiliate her. It seems the universe delights in making this woman miserable and the film is here to document that.

I wish there was more of a sense of purpose of putting Leda through the social awkwardness wringer like this. At times, it feels like “The Lost Daughter” is going to graduate into a full blown thriller. Leda slowly grows obsessed with Nina. She follows her and discovers she's having an affair with a man younger than her husband. She steals the little girl's favorite doll, causing Nina's daughter to cry nonstop. Instead of this plot thread building to an intense confrontation, it dissolves into merely another unpleasant exchange. None of the other subplots amount to much. “The Lost Daughter” just meanders around in this deeply unpleasant headspace, never providing catharsis or climax to Leda's misery. I guess we're just meant to be dragged along with her as she has the Vacation from Hell. 

If there's a point to “The Lost Daughter's” barrage of anxiety and depression, I guess it's that being a mother really sucks sometimes. Leda would probably think she deserves every bad thing that happens to her. She describes herself as a bad person several times. It's clear she feels massive amounts of guilt for walking out of her children's life for several years. In the somewhat disjointed flashbacks, where Leda is played by a capable Jessie Buckley, we see her daughters making her miserable. They constantly stress her out, even hitting her a few times. She can't get any work done or have even a moment of peace without her kids screaming for something. “The Lost Daughter” is probably at its most potent when exploring an uncomfortable truth: Being a parent is really hard! Not everyone is cut out for it. Unavoidably, you are going to hate your kids sometimes. Leda seems to have a relationship with her kids now but the break she took from being their mom is something she'll never forgive herself for.

She didn't just give up on motherhood for several years because her kids were absolutely driving her up the walls. She also did it because she was horny. Leda's sex drive is explored all throughout “The Lost Daughter's” flashback sequences. She plied her husband with graphic dirty talk but it still wasn't enough to satisfy her or even keep him hard. She's unable to masturbate without the kids interrupting. When she begins her whirlwind affair with Peter Sarsgaard (Gyllenhaal's real life husband, so read into that what you will), he makes her feel desired and free. She ignores her daughters to share a steamy phone call with him. Yet the guilt from pursuing the affair ruined her life. When she sees Nina making the same mistake, she tries to convince her not to do it in the most backwards way possible. It all seems to imply that women can choose a fulfilling sex life or a healthy relationship with their children, which I'm betting is an experience some mothers really do have.

Ultimately, I think I understand what “The Lost Daughter” intends to do. The protracted nervous breakdown it showcases is very intentionally not fun to experience. Gyllenhaal's direction is determined to capture this seasick mood of self-hatred and suffering, which she does quite successfully. Yet, at the end of the movie, I couldn't help but feel like it never picked up stream or went much of anywhere. Movies like “We Need to Talk About Kevin” or “The Babadook” also put us in the heads of conflicted, miserable mothers while making more of a concrete point about their chosen topics. Maybe I'm just too much of a guy to get this one. There's lots to admire about “The Lost Daughter” but it frequently feels like a long digression in search of a sturdier plot and pacing. [5/10]