The Lost Daughter: A Vacation Gone Awry (Netflix)

This screenplay was adapted from the 2006 novel of the same name written by Elena Farrante.  As with most movies that attempt to adapt a novel primarily based on one's inner life and complex psychodynamics, this film probably isn't nearly as interesting as the book (although I haven't read it). Leda (Olivia Coleman) is a distinguished college literature professor who is taking a short vacation on a Greek island.  She comes by herself and seems to want to be alone.  At first, she seems to push everyone who interacts with her away.  Shortly after her arrival, while on the beach, she meets Nina (Dakota Johnson), a beautiful woman in a bikini who has a young daughter.  (FYI, Dakota is the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, and she seems to have inherited their best genes.)  Suddenly, Nina's daughter disappears! This event lights up and reactivates repressed, unresolved feelings from Leda's past.  The psychodynamically relevant incidents are intermittently revealed via frequent flashbacks.  (Leda is struggling between her career ambitions and the demands of motherhood, but I found the frequent back-and-forth from present to past annoying at times.)  Leda acts in puzzling and self-sabotaging ways, which is due to unresolved guilt from these conflictual past experiences. The film has some very interesting scenes and the acting by all the leads is excellent.  For example, Jessie Buckley is superb as the young Leda.  (Props to Maggie Gyllenhaal in her directorial debut!)  The movie, however, is very slow at times.  There must be at least 15 minutes of footage with Leda just sunbathing on the beach.  (If it had been Nina, however, I would have wanted 30 minutes.) The last 15 minutes are surprising and intense, as well as psychodynamically consistent.  If the film had only been 15 minutes shorter, I would have given it an 8.0.