Olivia Colman gives a gripping, multi-layered performance as an enigmatic middle-aged woman, who seems haunted by her past, in the tense drama THE LOST DAUGHTER. THE LOST DAUGHTER is the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal, and her decision to cast Colman proves to be a brilliant one, as Colman’s remarkable performance makes the film.
Colman plays Leda, a literature professor who is vacationing alone at a seaside Greek resort. Early on, an awkward phone call with a daughter, who cuts her off abruptly, raises questions about how much of her solitary status is Leda’s own choice.
Ed Harris plays Lyle, the friendly caretaker of Leda’s vacation rental but her prickliness and brisk politeness suggest she is not interested in socializing. She tells people she encounters this is a working vacation, and takes her text books and notebook with her to the beach, settling into the deserted stretch with a satisfied smile. That smile and her calm are shattered by the arrival of a large, noisy family who seem to take over the space.
Colman’s Leda sends mixed signals throughout, of independence and neediness, of pleasantness and meanness. Her prickly demeanor re-emerges when the family intrudes on her solitude, and when one of the women in that large family asks her to move, so the group can all spread out their beach towels together, the professor bluntly refuses. They don’t take her lack of cooperation well, but back off with scowls and grumbling. Later a staff member at the resort Will (Paul Mescal) tells the professor that he admires her courage but warns her the family is “not nice” and she should be careful. Rather than being warned off, Leda now seems drawn to the family, skirting around clearly dangerous territory.
While this tense situation is evolving in the present, we see periodic flashbacks to the young Leda (Jessie Buckely). Ambitious and fighting establish herself as an academic, Leda is also struggling to cope with her two young daughters. Her husband Joe (Jack Farthing) is little help, and her older daughter is demanding and defiant, which Leda does not handle well. It is hardly a picture of domestic bliss and the stress is searing.
Meanwhile, at the beach resort, the young daughter of one of the younger women in the noisy family, Nina (Dakota Johnson), goes missing, triggering a frantic search. At first, the professor seems disinterested but then joins the search by going off to scour remote wooded spots near the beach, although perhaps she is just getting away from the chaos.
The missing girl triggers flashbacks to a young Leda hysterically searching in the surf for her own daughter, while holding the younger of the two. In the present, the daughter is found but now her beloved doll is missing, which launches a new search and a tense, evolving situation, laced with Leda’s complex feelings and her own past.
Director Gyllenhaal’s husband, Peter Sarsgaard, plays Professor Hardy in the flashbacks, an academic star who takes in interest in Leda’s work. The flashbacks and what happens in the present suggest Leda is haunted by unresolved guilt and complicated feelings about motherhood. Leda swings between grief and anger, and does things that leave us shocked and puzzled, unsure if we should pity her or despise her. The play of complex emotions is all over Colman’s exquisitely expressive face, but director Maggie Gyllenhaal gives away little, particularly about the full picture of Leda’s past. The director leaves the audience to wonder, and draw their own conclusions, both about what happened back then and in the film’s enigmatic conclusion.
That vagueness might leave viewers unsatisfied by the end but, regardless, Olivia Colman’s splendid performance is outstanding. Colman remains the major reason to see THE LOST DAUGHTER, given how murky the director leaves things, but it is so compelling a performance that it is worth the lingering questions with which it can leave viewers.
THE LOST DAUGHTER opens Friday, Dec. 17, in theaters and streaming on Netflix on Dec. 31.
RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars
