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QuickView: The Lost Daughter (2021)

The Lost Daughter poster

“I am an unnatural mother.”

Leda

Olivia Colman delivers a powerfully understated performance in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, a moody character exploration of a woman’s troubled past, which rises to the surface during a beach holiday alone. Colman is initially charming as the academic Leda, lonely and awkward as she can be, but this gradually wears away over the film’s two hours as we glimpse something darker beneath. With its structure hinting at a mystery, Gyllenhaal’s script leaves some motivations deliberately (if frustratingly) vague, but it is through seeing Jessie Buckley play Leda as a young mother that we recognise more overtly impulsive and selfish characteristics that are veiled⁠ — yet still present ⁠— in Colman’s performance. Through the family Leda meets on the beach, The Lost Daughter casts its net wider in addressing the societal expectations placed on young mothers in contrast to the harsh reality of parenting and the inescapable resentment and regret at lost opportunity despite love for one’s children.

7/10

QuickView: Snowpiercer (2013)

“If you can’t remember then it’s better to forget.”

Curtis

Snowpiercer is fresh high-concept science fiction that arrived a few years ahead of its time with an admittedly unsubtle allegorical tale of climate-induced revolution as the destitute rise up. Director Joon-Ho Bong adapts a French graphic novel with a confident blend of Korean and Western sensibilities that needs to be viewed texturally in the manner of Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Terry Gilliam. Logical interrogation of the implausible story will invariably lead to disappointment, but the violent journey through this train — hurtling ceaselessly through a frozen wasteland — is filled with tension and fabulous imagery. The revolution’s success seems ever balanced on a knife-edge, but as they advance each carriage presents its own distinctive diorama full of wonderful details. Chris Evans carries the audience as the reluctant hero, supported by a host of venerable British talent, including John Hurt and a riotously hammy Tilda Swinton. More than the sum of its parts, it was perhaps inevitable that the creative yet bleak Snowpiercer left critics more enamoured than audiences.

8/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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