The Lost Daughter 2021

 

“The Lost Daughter” and “The Power of the Dog” are great bookends for the horrible year that just past bringing us bloated stilly stuff like "Don't Look Up" and the limp remake of "West Side Story" These are  "I loved it" movies"

”I Loved It” is the one sentence critiques of movies and indeed other art forms that many people who have nothing to say about the movie use. This form of "criticism" that is rampant on facebook reminds me of when I was a pre teen and teen and I would watch American Bandstand. Now and then they would have a rating the new records segment using the dancing teens as the judges and who usually would respond with "I love it, it has a good beat" I need more than a good beat, and these two challenging and difficult films gave me that.

I would also add to this mix Rebecca Hall's small gem of a movie "Passing" which is also not an  easy view. All three of these films are based on novels that remain unread by me and all three are directed by women, two of which are also terrific actresses


”The Lost Daughter” written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and  based on a novel by Elena Ferrante  opens with a flash forward and then on to the journey of the main character Leda, a divorced professor of literature with two grown daughters. Leda is taking a vacation on a Greek Island where she hopes to relax and maybe get some work done. The island seems pretty and gentle, and Olivia Coleman as Leda (superb)  looks like she could use a good restful holiday. Not much is known about her, but through flashbacks with the wonderful Jesse Buckley who plays her younger self we will learn some things about her past.

 

The film has a sense of dread and indeed menace hanging over it that I wasn't expecting and is mainly due to that Queens family from hell who descend on the island with their generally nasty brood. They set up a major conflict within the story between Coleman and members of the family and in a strange way with herself. She is obviously a conflicted person. There are also conflicts on the island between Leda and the caretaker of the nice apartment she is renting (never mind the bowl of rotting fruit) played by Ed Harris and a young waiter Will played by Paul Mescal. But the big conflicts are between Coleman and the “family” that begin on the beach when Coleman refuses to move her beach chair to another spot so “the family” can have more room for their brood’s birthday celebration. I applauded this move by Coleman as I have done the same thing (only my incident took place in a movie theatre when I refused to move so some people coming in late could sit together)

Funny but not in a ha ha way is an incident in a movie theatre later in the film where a nearly empty theatre of patrons are watching a print of “The Last Time I Saw Paris” why this movie I don’t know, but there is an expression of pleasure on Coleman’s face that is soon erased when a rowdy bunch of teens descend and cause a rackus so that Coleman has to complain to a non caring manager to do something. Also in the theatre is the patriciarch of “the family” who finally shuts the teens up. Another incident that I can relate to as I’ve had some in your face altercations with lousy teens in theatres myself.

So the film sets me up perfectly to feel for Leda.

 She soon makes amends with the two female members of “family” over the beach incident, the pregant Callie played by Dagmara Dominczyk who has a threatning air about her offers Leda a piece of birthday cake and the young beautiful sister in law Nina who catches the interest of Leda and is played by Dakota Johnson in her best performance to date.  Dakota has a young annoying daughter who also intriques Leda. Maybe she reminds her of her own once young annoying daughters. The child soon goes missing and is found by Leda, but the kid’s doll is also gone and this becomes the missing link in the story.

The doll which is ghastly looking has also been found by Leda but she doesn’t  return it to the child, and indeed this sets up the rolling thunder of the movie. The missing doll is so drastic for  the family that they put up flyers all over the island with a photo of the missing doll and in one scene (that made me laugh out loud) many of the trees around the house they are renting are covered with them. There are issues of complicity and short burst of unexpected violence throughout the movie and towards the end of the film, that seems to be confusing to some.

The flashbacks continue and we see many incidents of the young Leda struggling to handle her two young demanding daughters while managing her own scholary career. Mostly it doesn’t go so well, and her marriage to a fellow professor starts falling apart. The question of being lost hovers over the film since many of us are indeed lost. Our country right now is lost. Lost in relationships, lost in family matters, lost in careers, and lost in our lives. Being lost can also be used as a metaphor and also as markers on real journeys. How many times have we found ourselves lost on travels, lost walking in strange cities and lost in our dreams and nightmares. Both Ledas young and old are lost and then found. A bit worn and weary but still found. We are all in our own ways “lost daughters” looking to be found.  One of the ten best films of 2021.
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