During the week between Christmas and New Year's I love going to see as many movies as I can and, now that I have seen most of the big Christmas releases, I have quite a few independent films on my list. Last night I returned to my favorite art house theater for the first time since the pandemic began to see The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut. Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman) is a professor of comparative literature on holiday alone at a resort on a Greek island. While she is sunbathing peacefully, the beach is invaded by a large and boisterous family and she immediately becomes fixated on a young woman named Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her three-year-old daughter Elena (Athena Martin). She sees that Nina is unhappy in her role as a mother and this brings up memories of her own claustrophobia as a young mother (played by Jessie Buckley) juggling her responsibilities to her daughters with a promising academic career. When Leda sees Nina becoming involved with Will (Paul Mescal), an employee of the resort, she fears that Nina will repeat the mistakes of her past when she chose an affair with a scholar (Peter Sarsgaard) who admired her work over her daughters. Colman gives a brilliant performance as a complex and somewhat unsympathetic character because, even though there is not a lot of dialogue, she conveys everything that Leda is thinking and feeling with just an expression. Johnson and Buckley are also superb at portraying the feeling of being trapped by the responsibility of motherhood and the societal expectations that come with this role. Gyllenhaal infuses every shot with a tension that is palpable, especially with regards to a certain prop. There were many times when I felt that Leda was in danger and this uncertainty kept me completely riveted. To be sure, this is a psychological character study with a narrative that is often very ambiguous rather than straightforward but I liked it and would recommend it.
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