Tag: The Lost Daughter

  • Biweekly Binge: Of faces and self-respect

    Maggie Gyllenhaal directed a short in Homemade, a Netflix anthology reflecting living and filmmaking during the peak of COVID-19. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante. Gyllenhaal set it in a future that is far and yet feels so near where a man deals with a life stripped of togetherness and community in the shadow of an unknown threat. The film defined the solitude of the lockdown even for the privileged. 

    Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley playing the younger Leda) arrives on a solo holiday in seaside Greece. A professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, she is a scholar of poetry and their Italian translations.

    She observes Nina (Dakota Johnson) and their big family vacationing in the same beach, where Nina is overwhelmed by her toddler Elena and an aggressive looking husband. Like an impulse, what she observes triggers an anniversary trauma in Leda, the trauma of being a mother and living with the complete knowledge of her limitations or even complete disregard for the relationship. Leda looks on as Nina suffocates under the weight of a daughter and a husband while Lyle (Ed Harris) the caretaker at the inn and Will the assistant – generations apart – try to win Leda’s affection. 

    The film ebbs and flows in two tracks, one with Leda making up for lost time, not finding the right words with both Will and Lyle and another swinging between saviour and destroyer in Nina’s life as a mother. Gyllenhaal shifts between the life of a young academic in flux with two little daughters and a partner, often struggling to gain a foothold in either of the roles. Leda in Greece goes through the motions of remembrance of days past as the “unnatural mother” (her words), who is both irritable and awkward when pushed to deal with areas outside of her academic expertise. 

    The Lost Daughter is a film full of faces, the most important weapon according to Gyllenhaal. Colman, Johnson and Buckley are almost always in close-ups, their disposition conveying the stress, trauma and disinterest in playing the mother.

    All the three faces at various moments express unexpected joy, unadulterated disgust, complete contempt and, rarely, a caring glance. The Lost Daughter, therefore, needed the best actors to pull off Gyllenhaal’s vision for the adaptation and with this lot she’s in great hands.

    It’s also a film that establishes something Joan Didion wrote on self-respect, “In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.”

    Leda may have doubts floating in her mind, but she retains that brand of self-respect – one that allows her to remain indifferent and not be swayed by any other life force, until she meets her double, Nina, a younger self.

    Quoting Didion again, “..one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.”

    Leda’s preoccupation with her intellectual outlet over more mundane familial obligations were seldom a threat to her self-respect. She tells Nina how amazing it felt to walk away from her kids for three years. She was never in doubt and weighed the immediate comforts and vocations against the arguably long term investment of parenting. She’s not incapable of love. Her self-respect instils in her the ability to choose what to love.

    (The Lost Daughter is now streaming on Netflix)

  • ‘The Lost Daughter’: Of faces and self-respect

    Express News Service

    Maggie Gyllenhaal directed a short in Homemade, a Netflix anthology reflecting living and filmmaking during the peak of the Covid pandemic. Gyllenhaal set it in a future that is far and yet feels so near where a man deals with a life stripped of togetherness and community in the shadow of an unknown threat. Above all, the film defined the solitude of the lockdown even for the privileged. Gyllenhaal returns with her feature directorial debut in The Lost Daughter, another film on solitude but one created by the threat of care and intimacy.

    Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley playing the younger Leda) arrives on a solo holiday in seaside Greece. A professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts (the place suggesting incredible academic accomplishment), she is a scholar of poetry and their Italian translations (the film is an adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante). She observes Nina (Dakota Johnson) and their big family vacationing in the same beach, where Nina is overwhelmed by her toddler Elena and an aggressive looking husband. Like an impulse, what she observes triggers an anniversary trauma in Leda, the trauma of being a mother and living with the complete knowledge of her limitations or even complete disregard for the relationship. Leda looks on as Nina suffocates under the weight of a daughter and a husband while Lyle (Ed Harris) the caretaker at the inn and Will the assistant—generations apart—try to win Leda’s affection. 

    The film ebbs and flows in two tracks, one with Leda making up for lost time, not finding the right words with both Will and Lyle and another swinging between saviour and destroyer in Nina’s life as a mother. Gyllenhaal shifts between the life of a young academic in flux with two little daughters and a partner, often struggling to gain a foothold in either of the roles. Leda in Greece goes through the motions of remembrance of days past as the “unnatural mother” (her words), who is both irritable and awkward when pushed to deal with areas outside of her academic expertise.

    Young men in boats make her uncomfortable and a taunting group of drunk men in a movie theatre test her patience. “It’s like talking about a film I saw in a language that I didn’t quite understand”, Leda tells Will during an awkward date, a line that captures her parenting disarray. The date soon turns into this monologue for Leda who takes light jabs at her daughters and her relationship with her own mother, the lightness only conveyed by the tipsy frivolity in Colman’s mood but the words flowing with the force of a gauntlet. It’s a scene with great writing and acting, conveying the essence of the film purely with the face.

    The Lost Daughter is a film full of faces, shallow focus with only the countenance to play with, the most important weapon according to Gyllenhaal. Colman, Johnson and Buckley are almost always in close-ups, their disposition conveying the stress, trauma and disinterest in playing the mother. All the three faces at various moments express unexpected joy, unadulterated disgust, complete contempt and, rarely, a caring glance. The Lost Daughter, therefore, needed the best actors to pull off Gyllenhaal’s vision for the adaptation and with this lot she’s in great hands.

    It’s also a film that establishes something Joan Didion wrote on self-respect, “In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.” Leda may have doubts floating in her mind, but she retains that brand of self-respect—one that allows her to remain indifferent and not be swayed by any other life force, until she meets her double, Nina, a younger self. Quoting Didion again, “..one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.” 

    Leda’s preoccupation with her intellectual outlet over more mundane familial obligations were seldom a threat to her self-respect. She tells Nina how amazing it felt to walk away from her kids fort three years. She was never in doubt and weighed the immediate comforts and vocations against the arguably long term investment of parenting. She’s not incapable of love. Her self-respect instils in her the ability to choose what to love.

    The Lost Daughter

    Now streaming on Netflix

  • Jake Gyllenhaal supports sister Maggie at premiere of her directorial debut ‘The Lost Daughter’

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: American actor Jake Gyllenhaal was every inch the supportive brother as he attended the premiere of his sister Maggie’s directorial debut ‘The Lost Daughter’ at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

    As per People magazine, the famous sibling duo posed together on the red carpet of Maggie’s ‘The Lost Daughter’ at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.

    Jake accompanied his sister where the pair coordinated in black and white outfits. Maggie was also accompanied by her husband and actor Peter Sarsgaard, who features in the film.

    Actor Olivia Colman, who plays the lead in the film, was also spotted at the premiere dressed in a dark navy velvet suit. Dakota Johnson, who also stars in the movie, attended the premiere dressed in a plunging silver gown.

    The movie received a warm, four-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival’s Sala Grande after Greek music played as the credits rolled, with Maggie’s brother Jake cheering in the row behind her.

    ‘The Lost Daughter’ stars Colman in the lead. She plays Leda, a literature professor and mother of two grown daughters who goes on an extended vacation in Greece. While there, she encounters a vacationing family and a young mother who reminds Leda of her own dark experiences with parenthood.

    The film is an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name. The movie also stars Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Ed Harris.

    Last month, Maggie told Vanity Fair she felt doubt as to whether she could direct the film, but that the doubts vanished as soon as she arrived in Greece, where the film was shot.

    “I have never felt more alive and in the current of my life than I felt as a director,” she told the magazine.

    ‘The Lost Daughter’ opens in theatres on December 31.

  • Netflix bags rights for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘The Lost Daughter’

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Streaming service Netflix has acquired the rights for actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut “The Lost Daughter”.

    The deal, negotiated with Endeavour Content, covers US and remaining territories, Netflix said in a press release.

    The acquisition comes ahead of the film’s world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

    “The Lost Daughter” is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Italian author Elena Ferrante.

    The film also stars Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ed Harris and Dagmara Dominczyk.

    The movie will follow Colman’s Leda, an elegant college professor who, while on a seaside vacation, becomes obsessed with a young woman, Nina (Johnson), and her young daughter, as she watches them on the beach.

    Their compelling relationship forces Leda to confront the trauma surrounding her own motherhood.

    Gyllenhaal has adapted the screenplay and also produced the feature film with Talia Kleinhendler and Osnat Handelsman-Keren for Pie Films, Charles Dorfman for Samuel Marshall Films and Endeavor Content.

    Gyllenhaal, who previously featured in “The Kindergarten Teacher” for Netflix, said she is excited to work with the streamer again.

    “They have supported so much of the work I am most proud of, and this is no exception. Netflix has consistently championed filmmakers that excite and inspire me and I’m delighted to be included in that company,” she said.