Olivia Colman is mesmerising in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s delicious adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novelMore on the best culture of 2021Olivia Colman gives a powerhouse turn in The Lost Daughter, prickly and combustible as Leda Caruso, a middle-aged languages professor on a working holiday in Greece. In flight from her past, possibly from herself, she stares at the sea as though it’s done her a great wrong and eats alone at the bar, repelling anyone who draws close. She haunts the resort like a ghost while other ghosts are haunting her. In an excellent directing debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal turns Elena Ferrante’s 2008 source novel into humid, sensual cinema. This is Colman’s stage and her tragedy; you can’t take your eyes off her for a second.
Leda can’t seem to relax into her tranquil island break: she’s disturbed by the unruly, faintly criminal family from Queens that rents the enormous pink villa just up the coastline. Nina (Dakota Johnson), the brood’s volatile young mother, mislays her infant daughter on the beach. The daughter, in turn, has mislaid her favourite doll. Leda immediately collects them both: she returns the child right away but, prompted by some repressed maternal memory, keeps the doll for herself.