THE LOST DAUGHTER

Once a long series of flashbacks commences The Lost Daughter swaps mystery for backstory and the film loses almost all momentum.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Olivia Colman is incapable of delivering a bad performance, so it's no surprise that the British actress is a standout in psychological drama The Lost Daughter. It's not enough to completely salvage the wildly unbalanced film however.

Debut director Maggie Gyllenhaal does display a real talent for mood and slowly building intriguein the first half hour, as she unpeels the cold façade of Colman's literature professor vacationing in Greece. But once a long series of flashbacks commences The Lost Daughter swaps mystery for backstory and the film loses almost all momentum, wasting the talent of fine actors like Jessie Buckley and Peter Sarsgaard in the process.

Luckily the main narrative still has a handful of strange, disquieting scenes to keep you invested in the overall thematic arc of maternal challenges and regrets, even if you are left frustrated by how much more powerful these sequences would have been without constant interruption by the flawed flashbacks.

Some people might still be mightily impressed by The Lost Daughter but all I see is a considerable promise largely squandered.

release: 2021

director: Maggie Gyllenhaal

starring: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris