Connect with us

Movies News

The Lost Daughter: Why Leda Stole Elena’s Doll

Published

on

The Lost Daughter: Why Leda Stole Elena’s Doll

Netflix’s The Lost Daughter revolves around the theft of a doll by its main character Leda, but why she steals the toy doesn’t have an easy answer.

The events of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter revolve around the stealing of a child’s doll by a woman named Leda, and the reasons behind this theft only deepen the themes of the film. Debuting on Netflix at the end of December, The Lost Daughter follows The Crown actress Olivia Colman as Leda, a middle-aged woman on holiday alone in Italy. The idyllic holiday is interrupted by a boisterous and large family that bursts onto the beach that Leda is lounging on early in the film, and this interruption is deftly conveyed by Gyllenhaal’s magnetic directing.

The Italian family that Leda encounters vacations in the same town every summer, as noted by Will, a man who works in the town while he is on break from school. Although Leda is annoyed by their presence at first, even refusing to move when they ask for her beach chair, she does take notice of one person in particular: Nina, played by Dakota Johnson, immediately grabs Leda’s eye, not only for her apparent beauty but because she has a young daughter in tow named Elena. When Elena goes missing one afternoon on the beach, Leda is reminded of the time one of her own daughters went missing. Despite this connection, though, this doesn’t stop Leda from stealing Elena’s doll, something that deeply affects the young child and destabilizes the family. Still, Leda holds onto the doll throughout the film despite the fact that she knows the immense pain she is causing both Elena and Nina.

Advertisement
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

Related: Netflix: The Best New TV Shows & Movies This Weekend (January 7)

It seems that, even to Leda, her reasons for taking the doll remain a mystery. At one point, using flashbacks throughout the movie, (in which Leda is played by I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ Jessie Buckley), it seems that Gyllenhaal is hinting that Leda taking the doll has something to do with one she gave to her daughter when she was younger. When Leda gives the doll (named Mina) to her daughter, the child draws all over it, prompting Leda to throw it out the window where it shatters on the street. This seems to hint that Leda is taking it back as a way to reclaim her own lost doll — but it’s much deeper than that.


Many of the scenes of the past showing Leda as a mother are chaotic, punctuated by the screams and cries of her daughters, and Leda is clearly disoriented by this. In a way, the doll allows Leda to be a mother without all of the bad parts that she is so clearly traumatized by. Leda can take care of the doll, repair it and empty it of the water inside of it, without having to deal with it demanding her attention or taking away from her life in any major way. The doll allows Leda to feel like a good mother – something she never felt with her own children and something that the character of Callie (played by Succession‘s Dagmara Domińczyk) makes her feel.


Advertisement

The connection that Leda feels to Nina should also be considered here. By taking the doll, Leda is making Nina suffer and therefore making Nina need Leda in an almost motherly way. Given Nina’s age and unfamiliarity with Leda, Colman’s character is able to provide Nina with motherly emotional support without the added weight of being her actual mother. Leda needs to feel wanted, but only on her own terms, as evidenced by her affair with fellow academic Professor Hardy. Ultimately, Leda’s reasoning for taking the doll will remain unclear and that is largely the point of the film as a whole. The Lost Daughter and its ambiguous ending don’t come with clear-cut answers or clearly laid out motivations. It is about the ways in which we are drawn to doing something -how society draws women into motherhood whether they want it or not; how the world draws people together who don’t necessarily belong together; and how people react to these situations with intention or some primal need that is undefinable.


More: What You Learn From Netflix’s 2021 Top 25 Movies

Advertisement


About The Author

Movies News

Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Published

on

By

Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

Advertisement

The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

Advertisement

Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Movies News

Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

Published

on

By

According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

Advertisement

To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

Continue Reading

Movies News

Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

Published

on

By

Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

Advertisement

Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

Continue Reading

Trending