Film Review: THE LOST DAUGHTER (2021): Olivia Colman Is Remarkable in Director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Dramatic Film

The Lost Daughter Review

The Lost Daughter (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Abe Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jack Farthing, Ed Harris, Ellie James, Panos Koronis, Vassilis Koukalani and Nikos Poursanidis.

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an ambitious directorial debut with her dramatic feature film, The Lost Daughter. Olivia Colman stars in this very deep dramatic film replete with a theme that was found in another movie based on an acclaimed literary work: The Hours. However, Gyllenhaal’s film has a very distinct quality that makes it impossible to look away whenever Colman is on screen. It’s structured as a thriller but those going in expecting huge revelations in the plot may be a little disappointed. This new picture is more of a character study than anything else and it even borrows the co-star of The Hours, Ed Harris, as one of Colman’s character’s potential love interests.

The film stars Colman as a college professor in her late 40’s named Leda who is on vacation and spends much of her time on a beach in the early part of the movie. She is revealed to have two daughters. She interacts with women on the beach such as Callie (Dagmara Dominczyk) and Nina (Dakota Johnson) and, soon, Leda locates a young girl who disappears from her family. That little girl has a doll which she is attached to that Leda secretly takes possession of which makes us question whether or not Leda is such a nice woman. However, nice really has nothing to do with Leda’s past. The film reveals in flashbacks that a younger Leda (Jessie Buckley) was slapped by her daughter years back and there’s a reason Leda feels worn down by life and motherhood.

Leda surprisingly enough has two love interests in the film but neither materializes into a true relationship. One of the men she encounters is a young bartender named Will (Paul Mescal) while the other is Harris’s character, Lyle, who manages the place Leda is renting. Both male characters interact with Leda pleasantly enough for the most part but Leda seems to be a woman who is hiding some inner demons.

This film greatly reminded me of a plot thread from the great 2002 film, The Hours. Julianne Moore’s character in that movie abandoned her child in order to find some freedom in her life and in The Lost Daughter, we learn that Leda walked out on her kids for a while. This film deals with the potential guilt and suffering Leda may be going through as a result of what she did in the past but there’s much more going on here. Through flashbacks, her passion for life is revealed through the young Leda’s sexual affair that she participated in when she was a young woman. Leda seems to have regrets but also values her independence.

Colman is remarkable in this film. She captures the good and bad qualities of her character and brings Leda to life through a fierce, complex performance. I was particularly impressed by the scene in the film where Leda stands up to some bullies making noise at the local movie theater. This may be one of Colman’s best sequences in the movie which is full of difficult and intriguing scenarios that challenge Leda immensely in their excesses.

Ed Harris has a minor but compelling role here that is important to the plot and Dakota Johnson’s character makes Leda come to some realizations as well. Leda’s interaction with these two characters ultimately reveals her inner strengths and weaknesses. When Leda fails to give the young girl back her doll for a large portion of the movie, we see her bitterness which is unleashed on others at any given moment.

Peter Sarsgaard, playing Professor Hardy, has some interesting scenes in the film opposite Buckley who plays the younger Leda to perfection. Buckley’s performance is absolutely pivotal to the film’s success because if she doesn’t make us understand the younger Leda, Colman’s performance as the older Leda wouldn’t succeed. These two actresses make the character fully fleshed out and it is certainly well-realized making the audience understand Leda whether we agree with her life choices or not. Buckley and Colman complement each other outstandingly.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s direction is always probing and she doesn’t offer any easy answers here regarding complex life issues. It can be argued that Leda is an unlikable character but in Colman’s gifted hands, the audience can relate to her more often than not. We feel all her pains and passions throughout the movie.

There are some problems with this otherwise worthwhile film. The movie is a little lengthy and, at two hours, feels like it has a bit less up its sleeve than some audiences may expect. It also underuses Dakota Johnson who is one of our most underrated actresses. With Colman’s intense, focused work, though, and Buckley’s wonderful supporting performance, the movie is ultimately a winner which will definitely put Gyllenhaal on the scene as a film-maker to be reckoned with.

Rating: 7/10

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