There are some films that have all the potential to be great – whether featuring an excellent cast, a strong script (especially one adapted from a writer known for being one of the most important of their generation) and gorgeous landscapes are all usually components of very good films. Yet, some films can squander these qualities for a number of reasons, taking what was a promising set of ideas and turning them into an overwrought and mostly miserable experience. Unfortunately, The Lost Daughter is one such film, with Maggie Gyllenhaal demonstrating that familiar quirk where a burgeoning filmmaker chooses to make their directorial debut with material that is far more complex and ambitious than their skills allow. Her attempt to bring Elena Ferrante’s novel to the screen certainly demonstrated a lot of audacity, but failed to manifest into anything vaguely on the same level as the enigmatic Italian writer’s gorgeous prose, which is some of the most rich and evocative to ever be committed to the page. There’s a reason why Ferrante’s work is rarely adapted to film, outside of a few sporadic projects, many of them the result of laborious effort, as well as involving the writer herself, such as the recent television adaptation of her My Brilliant Friend series. One simply doesn’t venture into Ferrante’s world without being entirely confident in their skills to engage with the primary themes and almost impossibly beautiful imagery – and as much work went into the creation of The Lost Daughter, it just doesn’t feel like it was doing enough, and the signs that this was a debut feature are frequent and indelible, leading us to consistent disappointment, regardless of how much the director and her collaborators tried to do something revolutionary with this material, ultimately turning into a dour and unwelcoming drama that never really reaches a point of coherence.

The problem here is that deep within the fabric of The Lost Daughter, there is a fantastic film, one that a much stronger director could have easily have achieved with the right approach to Ferrante’s work. Unfortunately, Gyllenhaal (for all of the effort she clearly puts in) seemed to be doing far too much to prove her mettle as a first-time filmmaker, which got in the way of actually making a good adaptation, which is clear in every scene. Audacity is both a powerful tool and extreme burden for artists, particularly those relatively inexperienced in their medium, and Gyllenhaal’s decision to adapt a novel by one of the most notoriously complex writers working today seemed like an invitation to challenge herself. There is rarely any reason to dismiss a filmmaker when their efforts are so clearly derived from a place of genuine interest in the material, and unlike many actor-turned-directors, Gyllenhaal smartly refuses to make a more run-of-the-mill film, instead choosing to hit the ground running with a very bold debut. Ultimately, it just doesn’t work nearly as well as it thinks it does – it’s not as moody as it could’ve been, Gyllenhaal conflating atmospheric ruminations with outright misery, and the twisted storyline is reduced to the point of nearly being pedestrian, over-explaining every choose and motivation these characters had, while still being as vague as it was at the start, being one of the rare instances of a contradiction actually worsening a film and its attempts to be multilayered, complicating the proceedings and turning it into two hours of unhinged misery, rather than the complex character study that it proposes itself as being, one of many unfortunate qualities of this truly misguided film.

It’s difficult to pinpoint all the problems inherent to The Lost Daughter, since they’re rarely operating on a broader level, with the most troubling flaws coming in the smallest details. It’s pointless to have a great cast if the characters they are playing lack any coherent nuance, instead being just flimsy archetypes that exist outside of reality. The film tries desperately to be this deep and insightful character study, but it falls apart the moment it becomes clear that none of these characters are necessarily all that interesting – and while it is understandable that not every film can be filled with captivating and unique characters, the very least it could do is manage to give them something to do, or demonstrate some kind of growth, which is entirely absent in this film. Instead, these elements are replaced by self-indulgent posturing, where Gyllenhaal mistakes aloofness for complexity – having a main character who begins to meddle in the lives of her fellow guests at a small Greek resort is a premise that is already treading dangerous territory, but it is only made more impenetrable when we realize that there isn’t going to be a moment where anyone in this film will start to resemble a human being, despite The Lost Daughter clearly being designed as a character study. It takes a lot of work to take an adaptation of a novel as psychologically profound as one written by Ferrante (who has mastered the art of intricate, nuanced plotting of time and place, and the characters that inhabit it), and make it something as opaque and unlikable as this. However, the director seems to have achieved exactly that, the moral ineptitude of already complex characters proving to be something quite unremarkable, which is a shame considering the strengths that could’ve come from a more precise execution.

It would be tempting to extend the problems with The Lost Daughter to the cast, with the actors themselves supposedly being just as complicit in the creation of these vague characters as the director herself. However, to her credit, Gyllenhaal does choose very interesting actors for the film, casting it exceptionally well – but this certainly does not mean that it necessarily works out the way she may have expected it. At the heart of the film are three of the most undeniably gifted actresses working today – Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley and Dakota Johnson. Each one of them is gifted in ways that do not need to be explained, having proven their skills countless times before, and occupying considerable space in the modern cinematic landscape. They’re all undeniably very good in their own right – they take on these characters and work Gyllenhaal to create memorable performances that define the film. This is only half true, since they do put in the work, but there’s really nothing for them to do in the first place. Colman, who possesses a chameleonic control of her craft, is relegated to playing someone who is less of a character, and more a series of stares and glares, many of which are from behind enormous sunglasses that hide her distinctive expressivity. This doesn’t imply the whole performance is a waste, since there are a few sporadic moments where she is given the chance to really express herself and navigate this character’s complex inner world, but they’re so few and far between, they start to lack impact. Buckley may be a strange choice to play the younger version of Colman due to the lack of resemblance, but she does inhabit the role of a complex young writer who doesn’t know what challenges lay ahead of her very well, while Johnson does much more with the thankless role of the subject of the main character’s obsession than we’d expect. It’s a good cast that is slightly wasted by an uneven execution, which ultimately doesn’t go anywhere particularly notable, and just further accentuates how much more work Gyllenhaal needed to do to make her directorial debut more effective.

For a film focused on some very potent themes, namely that of motherhood and the existential journey everyone will undoubtedly go on at some point in their life, The Lost Daughter is surprisingly prosaic. It almost seems as if Gyllenhaal was filtering Ferrante’s beautiful words through the lens of a very conventional drama, as a means to make this story accessible to casual viewers, who were unfortunately not the intended target audience for the novel, which is more poetic in its exploration of the main character’s rapidly declining mental state as she revisits moments from her past, looking at how they have transformed her into this mysterious woman detached from reality. She oversimplifies to the point of it becoming almost fatal, each new development being increasingly erratic and less effective, which is an unfortunate result of the director seemingly not getting a firm grasp on the material. It often feels as if Gyllenhaal is just throwing out some bold ideas, in hopes that something will stick – unfortunately, very little of it ever does, with the most effective moments being those that occur in between the overwrought meditations on pointless matters, which are given an aura of self-importance that would be laughable if the situation surrounding these events weren’t so grim. The Lost Daughter is a far more miserable film than it needed to be, and it would appear that the director herself began to realize this, as there are a few moments where it seems like she’s trying to slightly lighten the mood, but to very little avail, since by the time we get there, we’ve grown understandably bored at having to experience these bizarre obsessions by a woman whose background is as vague as her motivations in stealing that doll.

There are few qualities of a film more annoying than one that thinks it is smarter than its audience, and The Lost Daughter really just begins to be crushed under the weight of its own supposed intelligence, while seemingly never being able to show this in places that matter. It can sometimes feel almost patronizing at moments, with the director often over-explaining the most straightforward concepts to us, while leaving the aspects that need the most clarification entirely vague. It ultimately just doesn’t work all that well, and The Lost Daughter begins to gradually fall apart as a result of its overt reliance on complexities that just are not there. Some credit must be given to Gyllenhaal insofar as she had the right intentions here, and her decision to adapt this novel earns her a lot of credibility in terms of it being a bold debut that feels like she was genuinely trying to do something interesting. Ultimately, we can’t begrudge Gyllenhaal for at least trying, especially in terms of this being the rare instance of an actor making their directorial debut with something that is neither a blatant vehicle for themselves, nor a coming-of-age story about their own upbringing or experiences, both of which are extremely common. The Lost Daughter is a film that required a great deal of work, and was desperately in need of a more polished perspective to fully realize the scope of Ferrante’s incredible writing, which isn’t done justice by Gyllenhaal’s heavy-handed ramblings. As a whole, this film had potential, and inevitably just falls apart at the seams in all the places that matter, leading to a bland and lifeless attempt at a psychological thriller, which offers neither genuine thrills, nor says anything particularly interesting about the psychology of its characters, who warranted a much better film.