"Peel it like a snake; don't let it break."
"I'm an unnatural mother."
— Leda
The Lost Daughter is a 2021 dramatic film. It is an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's novel of the same name by Maggie Gyllenhaal and was distributed by Netflix.
An academic, Leda (Olivia Colman) goes on vacation on a Greek island, where the sight of a young mother, Nina (Dakota Johnson) triggers memories of her own unhappy past (now played by Jessie Buckley) raising her own daughters.
The film also stars Paul Mescal, Ed Harris, Dagmara Domińczyk, Peter Sarsgaard, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
Tropes
- Adaptational Nationality: The novel's characters were all Italian. Now Nina and her family are Greek-American and Leda is British.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Leda's ex-husband is willing to get down on his knees and beg for her to not abandon the family. She does anyway.
- Ambiguous Ending: The ending. After being stabbed with a hatpin and collapsing on a beach, Leda awakens the next morning to a phone call from both her daughters, with whom she chats happily. Leda also looks down at her hands to find a ripe orange that she peels in the way her daughters like. Given the orange as an Arc Symbol for her relationship with her daughters, with whom she did not have the best time raising, it's ambiguous if the ending is happening in reality or in her head.
- Arc Symbol:
- The doll, naturally, as Leda seems almost aware of, as she keeps playing with and "torturing" the doll depending on her state of mind.
- The orange.
- Arc Words: "Don't let it break, peel it like a snake", the rhyme that Leda teaches her daughters.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Nina asks how Leda felt after she abandoned her family, Leda responds that it felt incredible, but uses a choice of words that makes Nina realize that Leda's actions were far from the romantic reclaiming of her passion and identity that she acts like it was.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Leda's daughters were very difficult to handle in their youth, and they smack her, disrupt her, and in one case, ruin a hand-me-down heirloom she gifted.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Nina is very friendly, but she doesn't hesitate to stab Leda once she admits to stealing the doll.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Leda initially seems like a normal, decent woman, but once she actually has to indulge in extended conversation we see she's quite far from nice, and as the movie goes on we see her commit a decent number of highly questionable decisions in both the past and present.
- Brooklyn Rage: Callie is from New York City and is loud, brash and very opinionated.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: In a flashback, Leda tries to masturbate and is interrupted by her daughters.
- Country Matters: When Nina finds out Leda took her daughter's doll, she calls Leda a "fucking cunt".
- Disproportionate Retribution: Leda stealing Nina's daughter's doll and not giving it back despite the little girl being broken up about this for days is certainly a very shitty thing to do. That doesn't mean that the party in question deserved to be stabbed, especially after trying to make things right and finally returning it, even if she still came across as insensitive then.
- Foil: Callisto is an excited, expectant mother who is naturally nurturing. This contrasts her with her relative Nina, a young and exhausted mother, and the older Leda, who has regrets about the way she raised her own kids.
- Genre Deconstruction: Deconstructs the genre of media regarding women who come to regret marriage and parenting as an obstruction of their careers and identities. At first, Leda seems to fit the bill: an intelligent, independent woman vacationing alone, freed from the exhaustion of her old domestic responsibilities, and trying to guide another mother towards cognizance of her own unhappiness. However, it becomes increasingly clear that, while Leda certainly didn't have an easy time with her daughters, she's massively projecting her own unhappiness and insecurity onto other people, who cope much better with the role than she does.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Played with. Although Leda's affair is first framed as an escape from her droll and unhappy marriage and parenthood, it's clear that things eventually fell apart and she regretted abandoning her children. She also sees some of herself in Nina, who's having her own affair, but Nina is actually keeping things casual and is using it as a means of respite from her controlling husband.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Though Leda has a hard time making it clear why she stole and hid Elena's doll, it's heavily implied that she was envious that Nina had been having an easier time at raising a daughter than she had (Elena plays quietly on the beach with the doll while Nina sunbathes, which Leda never got to experience with her own children), and she's intentionally making life harder for Nina so that she will come around to her own opinion of motherhood. Suffice to say, Nina sees the truth quickly and reacts accordingly.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Leda is heavily implied to teach at Harvard.
- Jerkass:
- Leda may not be actively mean spirited, but she's ultimately a self centered woman who can barely hide how much she dislikes those around her and has committed the crimes or theft, adultery, and parental abandonment.
- The obnoxious boys talking during the movie. Once it's made clear to them that they're acting like nuisances, they then double down on the behavior whilst. And the excuse that their drunk doesn't change anything given they're able to quiet down as soon as an authority pops up only to immediately go back to their deplorable behavior afterwards.
- Kick the Dog: Leda stealing a little girl's favorite doll. Whether it was done with malicious intent or not, it's still stealing from a small child. It especially counts if you believe she wanted to cause the family misery in south so rather just reclaiming her own childhood belonging.
- Ms. Fanservice: Nina, as is expected since she's played by Dakota Johnson. She spends a lot of time in just her bikini.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Leda tries to convince Nina that she's just like herself at Nina's age: unhappily married with a difficult child and having an affair to cope with it. Nina rejects this and sends Leda away, realizing that they're very different people, and that Leda is just a Jerkass trying to make everyone else as miserable as she is.
- Not So Similar: Leda tries very hard to prove that Nina is no different than she is. Nina doesn't agree and it's implied even Leda doesn't believe it either.
- Older Than They Look: Other characters repeatedly say Leda can't be any older than forty. She's actually forty-eight.
- Parents as People: The film slowly reveals Leda's struggles in raising her daughters. Her (now ex-)husband evidently left the bulk of the raising to her, a grad student, who slowly became more and more frazzled and frustrated with them. Eventually it became too much and she abandoned them for three years to have an affair with another professor. In the present day, the precise relationship she has with them is unclear, and she's conflicted over the choices she made. As she puts it, she's very selfish.
- Security Blanket: Nina's young daughter Elena is very attached to her doll and is greatly upset after Leda steals it, with any and all attempts by her mother to make up for it being in vain.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Leda makes a weak attempt to convince Nina that rough patches in parenthood (in this case, regarding Elena's missing doll, one she started herself) and their ensuing unhappiness never go away, Nina stabs her with her hatpin and abandons her.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Leda is played by Olivia Colman in the present and Jessie Buckley in the past.
