Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

The Lost Daughter could easily be held up as an example of how film critics are just movie snobs with little interest in just having a good time. The reviews have heaped lavish praise on this film, but on the review aggregate sites, the user reviews are decidedly mixed. Having seen it, this split is wholly unsurprising.

So, I guess, let’s just get this out of the way: if the only purpose movies serve in your opinion is to entertain, then you’ll have no business with The Lost Daughter. This is a deeply nuanced drama, a humane portrait of mothers who are sometimes inhumane, and at times challenging to relate to.

Or, maybe it just depends on who’s watching it. I do find myself curious as to how mothers in particular respond to it. I watched this by myself, on Netflix, because I knew even beforehand that my husband would find little interest in it. Even I only watched it because of the critical praise, which can easily persuade me. I don’t have kids, and this movie deals a lot with how overwhelming parenting can be. It makes me grateful I don’t have children, honestly. To be so endlessly frustrated by the children you still ache for? I’m happy to go without any of that shit.

It took me a while to get the meaning of the title. For a long time I thought it referred to a daughter who must have died young, and the woman lives her life feeling guilty about it. The literal reference is actually to a doll, which a little girl loses on a beach and Olivia Colman’s Leda has actually stolen. It’s still not clear to me why she does this, and perhaps we are not meant to; when Leda is eventually asked why she says herself, “I don’t know.” She also says, “I’m an unnatural mother,” the line I will always remember from this movie.

Leda is 48 years old. Her age gets mentioned several times. Her daughters are now grown, although as grownups we never see them onscreen. Instead, The Lost Daughter is so filled with flashbacks of Leda as a young mother of two young daughters that Jessie Buckley is third-billed as Young Leda.

In the present day, Leda is vacationing in Greece. After a tense introduction in which Leda responds to friendliness with obstinance, Leda starts getting to know a large family vacationing nearby and sharing the same beach. This includes another young mother, Nina (Dakota Johnson, almost unrecognizable), who is so frustrated with her own little girl—the owner of the aforementioned doll—that it triggers Leda’s memories with her own children.

There is something peculiar, almost subversive, about The Lost Daughter, which is incredibly well directed and written by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her feature directorial debut, adapting from the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. Mothers on film have typically been characterized as either selfless heroes or, less often, abusive nightmares. The mothers in The Lost Daughter decidedly occupy a space between those extremes, rarely seen. Leda clearly has some mental instability, but she’s not abusive. In fact, she clearly loves her daughters, even though she rarely seems locked in when it comes to motherhood. She seems like the type of person who maybe should never have had children to begin with. But, she has them now, so what can she do?

She does something pretty drastic, actually, which I won’t spoil as it’s revealed rather late in the film. And this film does take its time, the first several scenes just casually following alongside Leda as she arrives at her beachfront apartment rental in Greece and hangs out on the beach or in the town. Eventually, you discover that Maggie Gyllenhaal has assembled a bevy of talented filmmakers, particularly editor Affonso Gonçalves (Carol), without whom this film would be something different entirely. Between his editing and the handheld cinematography by Hélène Louvart (who shot last year’s incredible Never Rarely Sometimes Always), The Lost Daughter feels like a collection of memories, whether set in the present or in the past. It sets a unique mood, one that’s difficult to describe because that’s what unique means. In any case, we feel very much like we are in Leda’s guilt-ridden, deeply insecure head.

There is an incredible amount of talent onscreen in this movie. Olivia Colman will surely be nominated yet again for a Best Actress Oscar. Jessie Buckley, to be honest, is a bit underused as Young Leda, seen in large part as random memory clips. She does eventually get to some content with meat on it, but none that illustrates how she is easily one of the most talented actors of her generation. That said, whether it’s Ed Harris as the longtime caretaker of the house Leda’s staying in, or Peter Sarsgaard as Young Leda’s professorial fling, or anyone else in this movie for that matter, the cast is fantastic across the board.

Nearly everything about this movie is great, really, aside from it telling a story that I couldn’t quite lock into. And even there, I hesitate to criticize too much, as the clear themes of motherhood are things I cannot speak on with any authority. Leda is an odd lady, and sometimes her behavior really makes you think, What the fuck? But Colman plays her with a grace of performance that belies the character’s regular awkwardness and inelegance. This is an understated portrait of the melancholy side, if not the dark side, of motherhood, and for those open to giving it a look, it’s likely either illuminating or validating.

Overall: B+