MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL DIRECTS
The Lost Daughter: Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson
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 memories of the terror, confusion, and intensity of early motherhood. Then, an impulsive act shocks Leda into the strange and ominous world of her mind, where she is forced to face the unconventional choices she made as a young mother and their consequences.
The Lost Daughter, adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel starring academy award winner Olivia Colman as Leda, marks the directorial debut for actor Maggie Gyllenhaal. Netflix has announced a December theatrical and streaming release, but the movie will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this month. The film will debut alongside two other Netflix titles, Jane Campion’s, The Power of the Dog and Paolo Sorrentino’s, The Hand of God.
Gyllenhaal’s career has spanned three decades, including film, TV, and Broadway performances, and she launched her role as a director just six months into the pandemic. Initially set in New Jersey, the pandemic forced Gyllenhaal to move the film’s setting and shooting location to Greece. Of making her first feature film in the director’s chair, Gyllenhaal told Vanity Fair, “I have never felt more alive and in the current of my life than I felt as a director.”
Gyllenhaal said in the VF interview she originally wanted to make her feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment. But, the rights to the novel were taken. She said reading the book The Lost Daughter felt like “some secret piece of my experience as a mother, as a lover, as a woman in the world was being spoken out loud for the first time.” So Gyllenhaal spent a month composing a letter to Ferrante to ask for the rights, and the author gave them to her on the condition that Gyllenhaal would direct.
“A big bonus for me was that Maggie was directing…but I loved the part because she’s (Leda) not entirely likable, which I’ve always found appealing,” Colman said. “All the stars aligned.”
Starring opposite Oscar winner Olivia Colman is Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Peter Sarsgaard, Dagmara Dominczyk, Paul Mescal, Jack Farthing, Robyn Elwell, Ellie Blake, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Panos Koronis, Alexandros Mylonas, Alba Rohrwacher, Nikos Poursanidis, and Athena Martin.
Netflix will open The Lost Daughter in select theaters on December 17, 2021, followed by a streaming launch on December 31.
