Olivia Col­man grap­ples with moth­er­hood in The Lost Daugh­ter trailer

One of the suc­cess sto­ries of this year’s fes­ti­val sea­son was that of Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal, mak­ing one of the strongest actor-to-direc­tor tran­si­tions in recent mem­o­ry with her debut fea­ture The Lost Daugh­ter. She took home the Gold­en Osel­la Award for Best Screen­play after pre­mier­ing at Venice, swept up some more crit­i­cal acclaim at the fes­ti­vals in Tel­luride and New York, and now approach­es its Decem­ber release on a wave of pos­i­tive word-of-mouth.

Today, the first trail­er has come along to show off the prick­ly, lux­u­ri­ous dra­ma that’s got­ten advance crowds all a‑titter. Anchored by a trio of extra­or­di­nary per­for­mances from Olivia Col­man, Dako­ta John­son, and Jessie Buck­ley, the adap­ta­tion of Ele­na Ferrante’s nov­el pays acute atten­tion to the tribu­la­tions of wom­an­hood, and moth­er­hood in particular.

Col­man por­trays the Ital­ian lit­er­a­ture aca­d­e­m­ic Leda Caru­so, come to a Gre­cian island town for a hol­i­day of sun and relax­ation, but mem­o­ries of her past have oth­er plans. See­ing the qui­et des­per­a­tion of beguil­ing young moth­er Nina (John­son) reminds Leda of her mater­nal trans­gres­sions all those years ago, shown through flash­backs in which she’s played by Buckley.

At the grand open­ing in Venice, our own Sophie Monks Kauf­man was pos­i­tive on the slip­pery psy­chodra­ma, albeit with reser­va­tions: ​“The Lost Daugh­ter is a strange beast with an unwieldy struc­ture and an uncan­ni­ness that is nev­er quite anchored by events,” Kauf­man wrote in her review. ​“Dis­parate plot­lines abound with­out com­ing togeth­er in a sat­is­fy­ing­ly coher­ent way. It may not all add up but this is an ambi­tious and taboo-tack­ling first fea­ture with an atmos­phere that lingers thanks to gut­sy per­for­mances from Col­man and Buckley.”

With respectable reviews, a fresh auteur in Gyl­len­haal, and a star-stud­ded cast that also includes Paul Mescal and Ed Har­ris as the men pass­ing through these women’s lives, the film will like­ly be a top­ic of fre­quent con­ver­sa­tion as we roll into awards sea­son. And for just the price of a tick­et, you won’t find a cheap­er way to take the Greek beach get­away of your dreams.

The Lost Daugh­ter comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 17 Decem­ber, Net­flix on 31 Decem­ber, and then cin­e­mas in the UK on 7 Jan­u­ary, 2022.