The dark daughter: the review by Paolo Mereghetti

To make her directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal has (curiously) chosen the novel by Elena Ferrante The dark daughteroffering Olivia Colman the role of Leda, a professor of Italian literature in Cambridge (USA) who has decided to spend her holidays on a Greek island.

Olivia Colman in “The Dark Daughter” (photo by Yannis Drakoulidis / Netflix).

Some rather intrusive umbrella neighbors and the sudden disappearance of a doll (which she finds in a grove), they remind her of the complex relationship with her daughters and force her to question herself about her mother figureon the “selfishness” he had shown by preferring a career (and a lover) to caring for little girls.

The Ferrantian themes of motherhood such as weight and obligation are all there, the actresses (in addition to Colman, there are Dakota Johnson and Jessie Buckley) are definitely good (and better than their male colleagues among which an ultra-wrinkled Ed Harris stands out), even if the feeling of a film that is a bit too “programmatic” remains undetected feminist intentions end up hindering narrative fluidity.

But they are the (typical) mistakes of rookies that take nothing away from the ambitions and courage of a choice against the tide.
For those who love Ferrante and the female gaze.

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