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The Lost Daughter

100 Movies of 2021

The Lost Daughter

2021

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson ...

6.4

5,881

Drama. Mystery Alone on a seaside vacation, Leda becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. Unnerved by their compelling relationship, (and their raucous and menacing extended family), Leda is overwhelmed by her own memories of the terror, confusion and intensity of early motherhood. An impulsive act shocks Leda into the strange and ominous world of her own mind, where she is forced to face the unconventional ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"In this remarkable directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal challenges conventional thinking about motherhood, delivering her most subversive ideas as subtext."	POS
United States	David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"Sexuality, motherhood and women’s struggle to carve a professional space outside it are beautifully served in this uncompromising character study (...) As material for a first feature, The Lost Daughter is certainly ambitious"	POS
United Kingdom	Xan Brooks The Guardian	"Maggie Gyllenhaal’s accomplished directing debut makes humid, sensual cinema of Ferrante’s novel (...) a captivating miniatur (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Jessica Kiang IndieWire	"Olivia Colman and Dakota Johnson deliver some of their best performances (...) is made with such alertness to the power of cinematic language (...) that you cannot break its spreading sinister spell."	POS
United States	Tomris Laffly The Playlist	"Gyllenhaal puts forth something profound, specific, and even bone-deep about womanhood, motherhood, and all the unspoken horrors and repressed regrets that surround these identities."	POS
United Kingdom	Wendy Ide Screendaily	"A supremely confident feature directing debut from Maggie Gyllenhaal (...) it shatters the binary distinction between the good mother and the bad one."	POS
United States	Stephanie Zacharek Time	"By the movie’s end, you feel you’ve come to know a complex and wholly believable human being (...) [A great example] of how to hold a complex narrative together"	POS
United States	Marshall Shaffer Decider	"With the dexterity of a psychological thriller and the attentiveness of a character study, [Gyllenhaal] adapts Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name"	POS
United Kingdom	Kevin Maher The Times	"Olivia Colman shines in a fierce Ferrante adaptation (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Yolanda Machado The Wrap	"A masterpiece of mood and subtlety (...) Gyllenhaal is gentle when needed and blunt when required, but her eye captures every emotion and element in the moment."	POS
United States	Ann Hornaday The Washington Post	"Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a quietly astonishing directorial debut with 'The Lost Daughter,' a crafty treatise on maternal ambivalence that delivers an unsettling emotional wallop (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	David Katz The Film Stage	"[Gyllenhaal's] chief successes are in making her adaptation of 'The Lost Daughter' as intellectually engaging as the novel, whilst bringing the characters to life with performances beautifully appropriate for cinema"	POS
United States	Diego Semerene Slant	"For a while, though, Olivia Colman’s performance carries the film, with little narrative distraction or stylistic conspicuousness (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United Kingdom	Ella Kemp Empire	"Gyllenhaal's vision is mostly impressive (...) A sophisticated, seductive, slightly unwieldy and often very sad study of the instability and upsets of motherhood (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Jeannette Catsoulis The New York Times	"Though Gyllenhaal can at times lean a little heavily on the sinister signifiers (...) she is never thematically distracted"	POS
United States	Noel Murray AV Club	"A haunting, astute drama about how much it sucks to be a mom (...) 'The Lost Daughter' runs out of steam by the end of its two hours (...) Like a chase picture, with a heroine racing in vain to escape societal expectations"	POS
Canada	Mel Valentin Screen Anarchy	"Masterful adaptation (...) Bracingly honest, a painful self-assessment, a statement filled with regret, guilt, and shame at her inability to fit herself into the suffocating standards and overriding demands of motherhood"	POS
United States	Peter Travers ABC News	"'The Lost Daughter' introduces Gyllenhaal as one of the most exciting filmmakers to hit the screen in years. This, you do not want to miss"	POS
United States	Phil de Semlyen Time Out	"[It] expertly juggles tone, hopscotching between timelines and slipping from tender to tense and back again, always challenging the viewer's judgments and preconceptions in unexpected ways (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Joshua Rothkopf Entertainment Weekly	"Olivia Colman toplines an excellent cast (...) It's a moviegoing experience, sure —and if you need to hear it, one of the best of the year. But it's really a call to compassion, which makes it transcendent"	POS
United States	K. Austin Collins Rolling Stone	"[It] makes a subversive thriller out of a quiet, complex character study (...) [Colman] is in top form here, and knows it"	POS
United States	Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"Chilling (...) This is a well-crafted psychological drama with excellent performances and sure-handed direction from a fine actor who proves to be a gifted filmmaker as well (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Tara Bennett IGN	"Told with breathtaking assurance and a striking point of view (...) Gyllenhaal gives us a fresh take on the inner workings of women, and with Leda gives us a complex female protagonist that defies what we usually see explored"	POS
United States	Sheila O'Malley rogerebert.com	"Harrowing, unpredictable, painful, confrontational, this is a movie for grown-ups (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	M.N. Miller Ready Steady Cut	"'The Lost Daughter' is an absorbing and unsettling depiction of motherhood with standout performances from Olivia Coleman and Jesse Buckley (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Guy Lodge Los Angeles Times	"It's not at all surprising that Gyllenhaal has arrived as a filmmaker with such a bold, conflicted paean to unorthodox femininity. But it's thrilling just the same"	POS
	Marta Bałaga Cineuropa	"It’s wonderful that nobody here is just one thing, not just “a mother”, “a lover” or “a wife” (...) If this is just the beginning for Gyllenhaal the director, it’s almost scary to think how deep she will dive next."	POS

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