The Lost Daughter - 3 nominations

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Jessie Buckley

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Olivia Colman

Best Adapted Screenplay Maggie Gyllenhaal (written by)

The Lost Daughter follows Leda, a middle aged college professor on vacation in Greece.  Her quiet, secluded resort is overtaken by a large extended family with grandparents, aunts and uncles, young children, and parents boisterously enjoying their vacations while Leda watches them.  When one of the children goes missing, Leda leaps into action and finds the young girl, making a small connection with the group.  Leda reminisces about her experience as a young mother, which frankly, was not great.  The scenes jump back and forth between young Leda trying to build an important career (and ok, having an affair with a colleague) and struggling to want to be a good mom, and middle aged Leda watching another young mother struggling, and even having her own affair.

So far, the people I've talked to either love or hate The Lost Daughter and in most cases, the lovers have been women and the haters have been men (not exclusively, of course).  This is a different kind of film about a woman - it's not the "can women have it all" tired trope, it's "what happens when women don't want it all, and it turns out what they really want is an impressive career?"

I absolutely loved this film.  Though the plot doesn't reflect my own circumstances, I was weirdly proud of the movie.  It's finally an honest and new take on a woman's choices, which felt thrilling to me.  Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley are both their usual brilliant selves (look for a future Oscar for Jessie Buckley, but not likely for this film), and it's the only time in history that I could find where two women are nominated for playing the same role in the same movie as younger and older selves.  Maggie Gyllenhaal was robbed of a directing nomination, frankly, for her debut with this film, but this will not be her last shot at the gold if this film is any indication of her talent.  Bravo to Gyllenhaal on an extraordinary film.

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