C‘It is those who for his first work prefer to be on the safe side, and those who do not have problems climbing on a slippery soil. The latter is The case of Maggie Gyllenhaal, an actress who for her debut as a director adapted the novel by Elena Ferrante The dark daughter (aired tonight on Rai Movie at 9.10 pm). Supported by a remarkable cast,
Gyllenhaal outlines a story where The introspection that the intertwining, a complex and thorny female portrait, which does not win the eye to the public but rather challenges it, counts more. A mission that is not easy completed successfully: in competition at the Venice Festival 2021, the film won the prize For the best script (three Oscar nominations).
The dark daughterthe plot of the film based on Elena Ferrante
Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman), half -age university professor, He goes alone in Greece for a summer holiday. While enjoying the beach and the sea, Her attention is captured by the young mother Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her three -year daughter Elena. When the little girl disappears, Leda helps to find her, and so she does even when it is the doll that is no longer traceable.
Opportunity for the two women to bind and confide their experiences to each other. Through various flashbacks, we discover the past of Leda and its difficult relationship with the daughters.
The dark daughterexplanation
Often adhering to the point of view of Leda, The dark daughter He connects us with his interiority and feelings, outlining a figure not treated by the American mainstream cinema (and not only). In fact, Leda embodies ideals of mother and woman perhaps difficult to share or for which to try sympathy, But that the film, however, invites us, if not to appreciate, at least to accept, scratching our established convictions.
In his comparison with Nina and the other women on the beach, Different points of view and approaches emerge on the topic. The development of the attack, with few and apparently negligible events, is therefore an instrument for one deep introspection of the character, in which the past He throws his own shadow on the present but in which thanks to the comparison with the other it is also possible for adults to growlearn (and maybe change).
Olivia Colman in “The dark daughter”.
The cast
For his debut to the direction, Gyllenhaal makes use of expert colleagues. To play Leda, we find Olivia Colman, Oscar winner for The favorite and Regina Elisabetta in the third and fourth season of the series The Crown. Next to her, in the role of Nina, she was chosen Dakota Johnson. For those who remember it as the Anastasia of 50 shades of gray, The dark daughter It will be a nice surprise: the actress knows how to give the character the right intensity in a very different character, after all already revealed in the Suspiria by Luca Guadagnino and in 7 Unknown to El Royale.
Next to them, other well -known faces, including Ed Harris and Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal’s husband. The dark daughter It also marks the debut on the big screen of Paul Mescalelectrocution in the miniseries Normal People And then the protagonist of Aftersun And The gladiator 2.
Dakota Johnson in “The dark daughter”.
Why see The dark daughter
The dark daughter It therefore represents another successful transposition on the screen of a work by Ferrante, to be enjoyed a few months after the conclusion of the series The brilliant friend.
The film, released in Italian theaters in spring 2022, It had passed almost unnoticed: the arrival on the small screen is therefore a golden occasion to find out for the first time or to catch even more deeply All shades of the Portrait of Leda. While waiting for a second work, The dark daughter It suggests a bright path of Gyllenhaal as a director.
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