'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.

Exactly, I don’t remember seeing Leda use a knife to peel the orange but rather her hands.

And it was a hat pin, not a knife, that was used to stab her.

Thank you for this thread OP.
I watched this last night having no idea what it was about. I was transfixed from the very beginning.
I found it a very emotional film to watch as my mother also abandoned me.

Although I didn't love all of the film, I really resonated with her internal battle as a mum - being a mum versus being seen for her talents, intellect, passions and womanhood. This is what drew her to have the affair with the beardy academic guy I think, because he saw her and validated her sense of self, which we women do often lose behind a fog of motherhood.

She identified with Nina's struggles with motherhood, but then made Nina's life ten times harder by stealing the doll, and just observed the fallout dispassionately. Almost like she didn't connect her action with the results.

She let the old guy (?Lyle) see the doll on the balcony, she didn't attempt to hide or explain it.

Then she returned the doll in an offhand manner, completely misjudging how Nina would respond.

I couldn't quite understand why she acted this way. She seemed very disconnected from other people and reality. She seemed to have no grasp that other people might view things differently to her.

I wonder if she resented the fact that Nina had such a large, passionate family around her and Leda led a lonely life. Even their holiday was remote and lonely, no friends or support in the flashbacks.

I have thought about this film all day, and for the people calling it boring I think are just used to the 100 mile an hour OTT explosion type movies we see these days. This was so subtlety brilliant

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants

She struggled with walking, and had a very big reaction to the pine cone hitting her back. I expected that the illness would be explained, but it wasn't.

The point/symbolism of the pine cone is the only point I’m struggling with. Any ideas anybody? Or do we think she was attacked?

A twig snapped just before the pine cone hit her, so I assumed one of the big family had thrown it at her.

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.

Yes same!! I actually forgot that my DC did this until I saw that scene. Such a relatable feeling of being tired and absolutely seeming with rage but unable to do much about it

In the novel Leda says that she took the doll because it guarded the bond between Nina and her child - it was the testimony of perfect motherhood.

But the writerly and directorial approaches to the narrative do diverge slightly, so …

@HopelesslydevotedtoGu

A twig snapped just before the pine cone hit her, so I assumed one of the big family had thrown it at her.

I thought this! I assumed someone had thrown it!

The point/symbolism of the pine cone is the only point I’m struggling with. Any ideas anybody? Or do we think she was attacked?
Yes, I think she was attacked.

@newyearnewshe

Although I didn't love all of the film, I really resonated with her internal battle as a mum - being a mum versus being seen for her talents, intellect, passions and womanhood. This is what drew her to have the affair with the beardy academic guy I think, because he saw her and validated her sense of self, which we women do often lose behind a fog of motherhood.

great point.

I loved this film so much & I've been thinking about it ever since. So much so I watched it a second time & enjoyed it even more second time round.

Leda feels (is) judged for doing something so many of the men in the film (& life) do with less or no judgement- walk out of unhappy/ unfilfilling lives & start again.

Meeting the hitchhikers she is suddenly aware that there's another choice. The Italian woman speaks about obligations we all face but running away with her lover we the only thing of significance she had chosen since childhood. Leda is enthralled by this yet still hasn't resolved exactly what the price to be paid is & whether she is able for it or not - she asks her how his children have coped, showing her dilemma- personal freedom or kids....

I think her love affair with the American professor was doomed as soon as she uttered the words that she hated speaking to her kids on the phone. His expression was interesting when he said 'don't say that'. It was ok for her to cheat, have an affair with him, pursue her career singlemindedly, behave like a single woman flirting at parties but admitting to not being maternal was a step too far. Even for him. The one she though really got her & understood her revealed that he really didn't.

The transformative power of education, particularly for women but the price that it may exert seems to be a recurrent theme in Ferrante' s work. This was at the heart of my brilliant friend & we see it again here. Leda has escaped a presumably working class upbringing. She tells kali that Leeds really isn't fancy & her reaction when her husband tells her he's going to get her mum to deal with the girls if she leaves & she immediately accuses him of threatening her. She's horrified at the thoughts of her girls having the same childhood she did but not enough to actually not leave them.

That pull between doing what was expected of her & being a devoted mother versus being seen & recognised & lauded in her own right as an academic & intellectual was visceral & really resonates

I could go on more but have said enough for now - I really loved this film!

The transformative power of education, particularly for women but the price that it may exert seems to be a recurrent theme in Ferrante' s work. This was at the heart of my brilliant friend & we see it again here.

So much … Reading the novel I find myself so often hearing Leda as Lenu, in exactly the context of My Brilliant Friend. And, ridiculously, part of my heart is a little bruised at this adaptation not having been made by the creative team that produced that serialisation. In a year that brought the most revolutionary work of TV genius I’ve ever known (2020 I May Destroy You,) My Brilliant Friend was still the thing that made me feel more than I’ve ever felt watching a screened narrative - and that slow painful clawing of her way up the sheer cliff face of the academic world, and it’s cost, was breathtaking to watch. So not having a reprisal of that phenomenon is a loss.

That said, the cast, characterisation and directing of this film are all astonishing and do total justice to the novel - just with a much cooler palette of visual, aural and emotional expression.

but admitting to not being maternal was a step too far

Absolutely spot on.

but admitting to not being maternal was a step too far

Excellent point

Being praised by Beardy Professor got her recognition from her Boss, a seat at the (dinner) table. Then Boss suggested it was just because Beardy fancied her. She got up and moved, she preferred Beardy both respecting her work and fancying her to her Boss putting her down.

Beardy professor was happy to have an affair with her (as long as she initiated it) and take her focus away from her children, but her openly saying she wasn't maternal was uncomfortable for him. He wanted to enjoy a sensual affair, he didn't want to confront any awkward truths.

As an older woman, Leda was a professor (presumably at Harvard from her "Cambridge near Boston" answer to where she lives), so had achieved professionally.

She seemed unsure how to respond to Lyle and Will. With Lyle she sent him away to finish her dinner,then I think tried a seductive move by saying something Italian in his ear, then ran away. She let him see the doll - letting a vulnerability show? They had a fairly honest conversation about parenting.
Will she talked about her breasts (!) and made that terrible "Will sandwich" joke, but then when he said she was beautiful she talked about her daughters incessantly.

I might watch it again as I'm thinking about it so much still.

First watch I was distracted by worrying a child would drown, or the Mafia would come after her, so would be more observational second time!

Yes! Beardy professors reaction revealed the deeply held, seemingly impossible to escape, mysognistic belief that it was unnatural for her to admit to not feeling 100% maternal about her children. He was an innovative, maverick thinker who was hailed as such, who found her work & her thinking 'thrilling' - how seductive that must have been to her. And how shattering to realise he judged her just the same as all the others.

I wonder too why she came back after 3 years. Did she come freely or was the pressure of answering questions about her status just wear her down? It's astonishing how many times she gets asked if she has children in the film. I don't think a man would be asked that many times. It would have been easier for her to deflect further questions by saying she didn't have children but she couldn't bring herself to do that either.

For some of the women, like Cali, having children was all defining but it was also interesting that she didn't actually have children yet so we have no way of knowing how she might cope.

There was so much symbolism too Leda' s mother always used a hat pin & she fixes Nina's hat in a maternal fashion with the hat pin. Which Nina later uses to stab Leda in the belly button, potentially killing her through the exact source that had given her life. Coupled with the fact that Leda hated her mother with such passion there's def something going on with all of that.

The inappropriate & lewd comments are also interesting. I was thinking about why she might act like this & think it might be one of 2 things or a mix of both. She'd clearly climbed very high in the academic world, perhaps a more male dominated world & making the comments before anyone else could might have been a coping mechanism.

Also she, as a young, brilliant & very attractive academic undoubtedly had her fair share of male interest. Now she's middle aged & invisible & is reacting to that by being provocative. It's also an interesting part of her personality what ever is causing it..

She totally misread the interactions with Will - it was clear she thought he was interested but I think he was fascinated as he'd never met anyone quite like her. And he was involved with Nina.

I agree that I was wishing it had been made by the same team as my brilliant friend but it was still a wonderful adaptation.

My main criticism is i don't understand why they changed it to a Greek island & not an Italian one as it was written. The Greek are not as known for mafia families as Italian & it only detracted but added nothing for it to be in Greece.

And final observation - I think she was dead at the end. I don't think she survived the crash. The beach scene is fantasy - the animated long chatty conversation with both of her daughters & the orange etc. Her observation that her daughters hated speaking to her on the phone was borne out in the earlier calls she made/ received..but this one was different- at ease, relaxed & happy.

why they changed it to a Greek island & not an Italian one

I can’t remember exactly - and don’t have time to look it up - but I think it was Maggie Gyllenhaal who had a sudden realisation that the Greek coast made more sense for this production. It’s in one of the interviews that I posted either on this or the other thread.

Again in the novel Leda wakes up in hospital. Her daughters and ex-husband, who all live together in Canada, have returned after hearing of her car accident. The stab would is just ‘an inexplicable lesion’. She does have the epiphany on the beach at the end though. I’m only half way through the book so can’t say definitively what was meant to be conveyed.

That's really interesting! Thanks. I'm buying the book today as I absolutely loved the brilliant friend books but haven't read this one. I'd read them before seeing the series & it was breathtaking to see something you'd only internally visualized come to life.

It will be interesting to experience this in the opposite way - film visuals first.

Her loneliness was palpable throughout the film wasn't it.

The Greek are not as known for mafia families as Italian & it only detracted but added nothing for it to be in Greece.

I haven’t read the book. While it’s true that the Italians are more connected with the mafia and violence, I thought I caught a reference to Astoria, which is in Queens, New York, and has historically had a large Greek American community, a portion of which had connections to organised crime. I worked in New York in the late 80s-early 90s and one of my colleagues was a single woman living alone in Astoria and I remember her telling me how safe her neighbourhood was (mafia and similar neighbourhoods typically had very low burglary and assault rates).

So while the book may have been set on an Italian island with a mafia family meeting Leda, I think the family in the film was Greek. I grant that you might not have clocked this if you knew nothing about New York!

Another clue for me that they could have been Greek is that Callie is often a nickname for Calliope, which can be a Greek girl’s first name. I don’t know what her first name was in the book but I’m not aware of an Italian girl’s first name that is shortened to Callie.

I had read somewhere that the reason production was in Greece rather than Italy was covid related. Is that not right?

I think Callie said her name was Calista (not sure re spelling) and that it means 'most beautiful'!
It's a Greek name I believe.

@freshflowers2 You may be right.

Why would the family have thrown the pine cone at her at that point in the movie?

@PrincessNutella

Why would the family have thrown the pine cone at her at that point in the movie?

I can't remember the chronology, but she had naffed off the male members by refusing to move for the party (one called her a c*nt) and also there was the situations where they wouldn't STFU in the movie theatre. Making a point of 'woman, know your place'. And if you carry on with your trouble making ways, there is worse to come.

Loved this film, have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments! I think she was dead at the end, and the orange marked that it was a fantasy.