'The Lost Daughter' on Netflix... Does anyone understand it? (*Spoilers)

[NinaDefoe]

Just finished it and I haven't got a clue what just happened!

What was the point of Paul Mescall's character?
What happened to her husband?
What happened to her daughter?
Was she talking to both daughters on the phone at the end?
What was the point of the 'gangster family'?
Why did she steal the doll?
Did she die at the beach?
What was the relevance of the female hiker she kept hugging?

So many questions.
Did anyone actually understand it? I don't think I could bear to watch it again.

I have just watched this and thought it was a brilliant film. It made me feel tense and on edge the whole way through.

I thought the title of the film was interesting, it could refer to Leda (hint that her own mother was lacking and I felt Leda had a ambivalent attachment style as a result), Elena when she goes missing or Bianca as Leda seemed to push her away all the time.

I also think she died at the end.

With regard to the fainting, Leda does say that her mother had this as well. It seemed an emotional response rather than physical.

I also thought Leda's response to Nina seemed to be her trying to help her, and mother her. She ends up stabbed, which to me was an analogy of her experience with her own daughters.

I also could relate to that feeling, one of my dds used to hit me for attention and the more tired and "off" I was the more she did it.

A hard watch.

I loved it, so brutally relatable about the monotony and boredom of raising children. I love that the main character felt great after escaping her family - so different from the usual women portrayed in film and I like it when a main character is unlikable. A good break from the norm!

Really made me want to go on holiday though.

Elena Ferrante wrote about the film in The Guardian
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/06/maggie-gyllenhaal-elena-ferrante-film-book

She didn’t say much!

(Thanks for the link, though!)

Director’s point of view here:

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/08/awards-insider-maggie-gyllenhaal-lost-daughter-first-look

But again, it’s a perspective …

It’s not often a film leaves one with so much to think about!

I think she stole the doll because she was jealous of the little girl and because her own doll had been destroyed and she wanted to recreate it. That's why she bought it new clothes and slept with it.

The doll represented something lost and she would even deprive a distressed child of it because she saw her own needs as greater than the child's, as she always had done as a mother.

I presumed she got an infection from being stabbed and that's what she passed out on the beach,not that she had a long term physical illness.

DH and I watched it New Years Eve. I am not sure how I feel about it (he slept through a long stretch of it - it was a bit slow at times). It hadn’t occurred to me Leda really died at the end although I did wonder how she could have survived and not drowned, assuming the stab wound was superficial enough to recover from quickly. Maybe I need to back over that final scene again - she was wearing white but when she was on the phone with her daughters I seem to recall not seeing blood on her clothes, which I also found strange.

I thought the stabbing with the hat pin (which in hindsight I should have seen for its Chekovian-gun properties, didn’t make that mistake when I watched Power of the Dog the next day) in the stomach provided a release for Leda from her guilt and regret and allowed her to make peace with her daughters and with what she had done.

For some bizarre reason I am blanking on the hikers and I really did watch the whole film! When did they turn up?

the hikers were walking some sort of route which went passed their holiday home.

no she mentioned passing out when the girls were small and her husband was going away. she was worried about it

and she mentioned her mother used to pass out too

but how was the phone ringing at the end? wouldnt it have been wet in the sea?

We didn’t see her drinking but could some of the unusual behaviour be due to drink?
When she went up to the man in the bar and whispered in his ear for example?
The passing out, finding it hard to walk?

She was seen a few times finding it hard to work, even without drink. I think it was related to whatever caused the extreme bruising, eg when the pine cone hit her. I think she was ill, but it was never explained. Dunno if we get more of that in the book.

For me it underlined my belief that actually nothing is as important than the love of your children. Everything OC had achieved professionally she didn’t value. Her while being was suffused worth memories and her feelings surrounding her daughters, that was the lens through which she saw everything - the extended family on the beach, the fling between Nina and Will.
I think on some level she has accepted herself and her actions.
What I couldn’t get over was that she had obviously suffered at the hands of her mother and yet gave up her daughters to that same fate.
I agree that men seemingly get off more lightly, but do they? The connection between a mother and her child is one of life’s strongest affirmations. I am real, I am here, I am needed.

Sorry for typos!

I think Leda's husband got off more lightly. He immediately said he would take the children to her mother's in an attempt to manipulate her to stay. She seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown at that point. I presume Leda's mother mainly brought them in the Lost Years. I can identify with being desperate, but not leaving my offspring. I suppose it depends how desperate you get. Everyone has a different life experience, tipping point, etc.

I remember many years ago, a friend of mine, also an academic coincidentally, got the chance to work in the USA for about 6 months. Her DD was a toddler at the time, and she went ahead. However, her DP was the main caretaker anyway, so makes it slightly different.

I watched it today and hoped there was a thread as I wasn't sure what to make of the ending.

I also think she does die. The phone call is very idealised and happy, harking back to the scene at the table earlier where she peels them fruit.

I thought she had a knife at the end. Where would that have appeared from if it was real?

I don’t recall seeing a knife at the end, but I do remember her peeling the orange with her hands.

Nearly halfway through the book …

Leda muses that ‘Years earlier, I had been a girl who felt lost …’

I must say I’m discovering what a masterclass in adaptation the film is. It’s delightful to come upon a monologue in the novel that’s been turned into a dialogue / conversation in the film. And to see her motivations set out more explicitly.

But I don’t want to spoil it! I’d encourage anyone feeling intrigued to read the book - it’s pretty short and, so far, easily digestible.

@Mommybunny

I don’t recall seeing a knife at the end, but I do remember her peeling the orange with her hands.

She was stabbed with the hat pin.

Are you lot on Mumsnet while watching telly ?

Sorry, since when is a hat pin a knife?

What an interesting discussion! It never occurred to me that she might be dead. I don't think Dakota Johnson is a great actress, but I did think her gaze was piercing, and I think whoever made the point about the female gaze was right. Women are looking at other women in this movie. Symbolically, taking care of the doll is very powerful. I kept thinking, I'll bet it's stuffed with cocaine (because it was a mafia family). But no, it was just stuffed with sea worm. It is, however, a pretty weird. thing to do in real life. For some reason, I got it into my head that Dakota's hatpin was poisoned, but of course that's silly.

@Mommybunny

Sorry, since when is a hat pin a knife?

I think people were questioning the appearance of a knife to peel the orange at the end. I don't remember seeing one.

Yes it was the hatpin that Nina used to stab Leda.

She was bleeding at the end, she touched her stomach and her fingers had blood on them. Then the orange appeared in her hands and she started peeling it.