Before I talk about The Lost Daughter I'm going to gripe first about trailers. I hate trailers that tell you the whole movie. But I also hate trailers that sell you a completely different movie. The Lost Daughter is nothing like the trailer that is going around for it. Ignore that. Pay no attention to it. The Lost Daughter is a much better movie than the trailer would make it seem. Go in knowing nothing.
What you can know is The Lost Daughter is about loss, about how difficult our choices are, about how often there is no good choice. It is about how parenthood, especially motherhood specifically, can be nothing like it is romanticized to be. It is about a lot of things, very little of which is in the trailer.
The Lost Daughter is another tour de force for Olivia Coleman. Is it possible for this woman to give a bad performance? She is spectacular in this, being all sort of complicated things. Jessie Buckley is also brilliant and together the two craft one of the most interesting and intricate characters in any movie this year.
The Lost Daughter shows that Maggie Gyllenhaal has as much talent as a screenwriter and director as she does as an actor. This isn't a simple or straightforward adaptation but a truly innovative film that is compelling as hell and never quite gives us what we expect.
The Lost Daughter is a great film, a truly strong debut for Gyllenhaal, and just a pleasure to sit back and savour.
The Lost Daughter
Starring: Olivia Coleman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Ed Harris, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Domińczyk, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Jack Farthing
Writer/Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
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