“The Lost Children” (M) *** and a half

THE literary origin of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial and film-writing debut is a novel by Italian Elena Ferrante. That name is a nom-de-plume. The author’s true name has never been publicly revealed. One yearns to know why a writer needs to hide behind this sort of enforced anonymity.

I saw this film at a midday session, along with, as far as I could ascertain, a quintet of other people. Their age distribution remains unknown. What about them is certain is their gender. Female all. 

Does this suggest that “The Lost Children” is a “women’s” film? Shame on anybody who thinks that. Forty-eight-year-old Leda (winningly played by Oscar-winning British actress Olivia Colman) is an academic – when questioned about what she does, she says she’s a professor. Funny people, Americans. They are ready to hang that professional designation on anyone who teaches. Never mind. What she teaches slowly emerges as the story progresses. It’s literature. 

Leda has two daughters now aged in their middle and late twenties. 

We see them mostly as small children. Playing Bianca, the older, Robin Elwell is convincing, as is Ellie Blake playing Martha. Bianca is a handful. The pair went to live with their father in Canada. Living alone, Leda feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier.

We first see Leda heading for the beach alone early one morning. At the edge of the Mediterranean, we see her collapsing in a graceful heap. Is there something wrong? Yes, and the film spends its 122 minutes finding out why.

Leda decides to take a holiday on a small Greek island, where she encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless event occurs, memories of the difficult choices she made as a mother and their consequences overwhelm her.

And that in a nutshell is what the film’s about. Its tensions are gentle yet unremitting. The to and fro in time of its events are deftly and uncompromisingly handled by Jessie Buckley playing Leda as a young mother who’s got much to learn about parenting. And the finish at the time and place where it began is agreeably enigmatic.

At Palace Electric