The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#2 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:59 pm

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is major debut film, executed with an intense confidence and an uncanny capacity to steadily ratchet up the narrative, psychological, and erotic tension to often uncomfortable extremes. Spattered with evocations of rot, stain, and infestation, Gyllenhaal subverts the exoticism of the Greek vacation resort locale; similarly, almost every member of her amazingly stacked cast of beautiful people reveal their less attractive interiors as the film unfolds.

Foremost among that cast — even more striking a performance than Olivia Colman’s predictably superb lead — is Jessie Buckley, who captures her character’s complexity with a magnetism that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from. That said, Dakota Johnson, Peter Saarsgard, Ed Harris, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen all deliver in smaller roles; this really is a perfectly cast film. I’m thrilled that Gyllenhaal has established herself as a filmmaker to take notice of, and I’ll be eagerly looking forward to seeing her develop as a director.

This is also one of those times I’m mildly disappointed Netflix has a film, not because Daughter demands the visual or auditory support of a theatrical screening, but more because being trapped in your seat and unable to use the pause button to relieve the tension is pretty vital to the film’s potential to make an audience equally uncomfortable and transfixed.

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swo17
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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#3 Post by swo17 » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:15 pm

Did you ever watch The Deuce, where she was both a producer and lead?

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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#4 Post by DarkImbecile » Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:20 am

swo17 wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:15 pm
Did you ever watch The Deuce, where she was both a producer and lead?
No, I actually bought the first season’s Blu-ray about 18 months ago, and it never showed up! I haven’t made another attempt yet, but I’m guessing you’re urging me to do so?

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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#5 Post by swo17 » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:14 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:20 am
swo17 wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:15 pm
Did you ever watch The Deuce, where she was both a producer and lead?
No, I actually bought the first season’s Blu-ray about 18 months ago, and it never showed up! I haven’t made another attempt yet, but I’m guessing you’re urging me to do so?
The full 3-season arc of the show is about as good as The Wire, unless for some reason you can't stomach James Franco in a lead role (let alone two of them!) Or lots of explicit sex

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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#6 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:18 pm

Wow, I watched two seasons and found it solid but not nearly comparably to (what I think is) TV’s greatest achievement, and lost enough interest to skip the final season altogether. Maybe I should revisit

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Re: Festival Circuit 2021

#7 Post by swo17 » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:25 pm

Alright, maybe I'm setting the bar too high but at the very least it's definitely worth watching to the end

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Re: The Films of 2021

#8 Post by bdsweeney » Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:23 pm

I was lucky enough to see a cinema screening of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and was left completely untethered, yet completely heard by its restrained but deeply felt drama. All aspects of the film felt absolutely correct: its naturalistic cinematography that made people’s faces, not the Greek island, the primary landscape; complex but unobtrusive editing; across-the-board wonderful performances (but especially Coleman and Buckley); and stunning screenplay and direction that conveyed the main character Leda’s internal psychology so, so well.

But it is the story’s (and film’s) personal truths that hit me most hard. Parenthood is very much full of wonder and joy. But its continual 24/7, 365-day-a-year nature can leave one exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I sometimes yearn for my life before parenthood. I (mostly) have all the patience in the world for my child but it doesn’t mean I do not sometimes hold internal resentment. Leda’s words “children are a crushing responsibility” cut deep: feelings of recognition, shame, selfishness, and truth. I suspect these are not uncommon feelings, but almost feel transgressive to say aloud. For me, film of the year

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Re: The Films of 2021

#9 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:45 pm

That's great that the film had that effect on you. Some of the most powerful progress I've seen in therapy sessions were parents admitting they both loved and hated their children, and recognition of the part that resents one's child almost always leads to more internal harmony, in my experience. I was already eager to see it for Buckley most of all, but now I'm excited for other psychological reasons. Thanks for sharing in a personal way!

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Re: The Films of 2021

#10 Post by nitin » Thu Dec 23, 2021 6:23 am

bdsweeney wrote:
Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:23 pm
I was lucky enough to see a cinema screening of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and was left completely untethered, yet completely heard by its restrained but deeply felt drama. All aspects of the film felt absolutely correct: its naturalistic cinematography that made people’s faces, not the Greek island, the primary landscape; complex but unobtrusive editing; across-the-board wonderful performances (but especially Coleman and Buckley); and stunning screenplay and direction that conveyed the main character Leda’s internal psychology so, so well.

But it is the story’s (and film’s) personal truths that hit me most hard. Parenthood is very much full of wonder and joy. But its continual 24/7, 365-day-a-year nature can leave one exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I sometimes yearn for my life before parenthood. I (mostly) have all the patience in the world for my child but it doesn’t mean I do not sometimes hold internal resentment. Leda’s words “children are a crushing responsibility” cut deep: feelings of recognition, shame, selfishness, and truth. I suspect these are not uncommon feelings, but almost feel transgressive to say aloud. For me, film of the year
I'm not a parent but Gyllenhaal knocked this out of the park IMHO, I havent seen quite a few films from this year yet but this is easily sitting at the top of the pile so far. Buckley and Colman are outstanding but this is muscular direction and writing for a debut!

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Re: The Films of 2021

#11 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Jan 02, 2022 2:20 am

DarkImbecile wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:59 pm
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is major debut film, executed with an intense confidence and an uncanny capacity to steadily ratchet up the narrative, psychological, and erotic tension to often uncomfortable extremes. Spattered with evocations of rot, stain, and infestation, Gyllenhaal subverts the exoticism of the Greek vacation resort locale; similarly, almost every member of her amazingly stacked cast of beautiful people reveal their less attractive interiors as the film unfolds.

Foremost among that cast — even more striking a performance than Olivia Colman’s predictably superb lead — is Jessie Buckley, who captures her character’s complexity with a magnetism that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.
I'm glad this film worked for DI and bdsweeney, but I thought it was a major disappointment and misfire in respect to its aims. The idea of "subverting the exoticism" of the intentional location is a strong conceit in portraying how we cannot escape from our 'selves' no matter where we go, but I don't think the film succeeds in sponging the possibilities from this atmospheric concept (even if there is a parallel in the flashbacks) because instead it opts to submerge us in the claustrophobic frenetic psychologically-driven narrative of Colman's flashbulb memories. This strategy is too inebriating, and forfeits character development on both sides in favor of an aesthetic methodology in heavily-emphasized psychological breakdown fragmenting everything.. including investment.

I "get" that the memories are realistically intrusive and nonlinear by design, but they're also intended to serve as the impetus for our interest in Colman's modern narrative, and Buckley- who I love and does her best here- is given next to nothing to work with as a result of this approach. I understand that parenting is hard, but never did I see the character beyond a unidimensional exhausted empty vessel searching for selfish outlets- which is totally valid and worth empathizing with- though because we aren't granted a connective tissue of Buckley's own trajectory of depletion, it's hard to transfer anything but an apathetic feeling onto Colman, when the purpose is to find both empathy for a character who cannot grant it to herself, and judgment in both her and our own schematic moral spaces, and weigh them together. Perhaps Colman is in a shame attack and won't give herself any wiggle room to stress her reasons and flesh out her own humanity with detail in these remembrances, but we need that as an audience to care. Or at least I do. I still came away with a humanistic outlook in tact as always.. I know that Colman clearly has dignity and is worth caring about, but I felt robbed of an opportunity to channel that drive, and was left frustrated glaring at an empty canvas when I wanted to admire a painting.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#12 Post by brundlefly » Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:03 pm

Willing to claim middle ground on Lost Daughter as I thought it largely and impressively successful on doing the hard stuff and clumsy and, frankly, silly in the front.

The notes on subverting the exoticism of the locale are interesting! And Gyllenhaal does so without resorting to close-ups for what feels like the longest time; so much patience in cutting to Nina that I didn't realize it was Dakota Johnson (stronger than I'd seen her in other things, which helped). But Bad Vacation Space is hamfistedly underlined at the top by the interior of the rental space with the rotten fruit and lighthouse blasts. Felt the whole movie got off to a poor start. Found Colman's performance choppy. Some of that surely by design, but the awkward reaching out/withdrawing aspect to her actions happen so abruptly that, instead of a mixture of complex desires and insecurities, it settles into a series of consistent embarrassments. Some of which, sure, are meant to agitate and unsettle and/or show her as agitated and unsettled. I can love that behavioral tug/push. Sometimes when you want to be alone, the world will not leave you alone. And sometimes when you want to be alone, you don't want to be alone at all. The vacillation works best in Colman’s scenes with Nina, quick turns between warming up and ice-cold shut-off. But few of the Colman’s scenes away from Nina worked at all, for me, and when they did, it was usually because we met her midway in a scene (three drinks into a meal or the like) or just graciously, warmly sympathetic with her scene partner -- that is, being Olivia Colman.

And then they show her playing with or sleeping with the doll that's the facile device and symbol at the center of the movie and my eyes would roll so far back in my head I suspect they were trying to land on something better. Like that children's book I read I was a kid that had a mother collie adopt a rubber boot when she lost one of her puppies. Which was fine, there, because it was a children's book.

(Maybe Colman is miscast? She’s so good sharing with other performers, even being mean with them, but maybe not good alone in a room?)

The emotional heavy lifting happens in the flashbacks, and for me those worked perfectly. Buckley has been so good in everything -- am thrilled DI's 2022 preview pointed out her forthcoming projects, and double-thrilled about the Sarah Polley -- and unlike Colman's scenes are both centered enough to express conflicting impulses and desires and scattershot enough to suggest there’s always unknowable more to be had. Like how the all-consuming affair with Sarsgaard is summarily dismissed as if it never mattered. Found it all convincingly of a piece; Buckley-era Leda never has to be a full painting, she just needs to be sketches and dots enough to suggest a space in the light. That scene with the hikers is so, so good, and her connection with the female hiker is so alive with acknowledgment and possibility. "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." Is it the Sarsgaard character who drops the Weil line? He probably does so seductively. But it’s apt in these background scenes whether applied to the self-enabling attention Leda chooses to give herself, the appreciation of peers and recognition by the female hiker, or simply an uncritical space in front of a camera lens.

What’s missing for me – and I’ll cosign twbb’s “connective tissue” notice in this way – is the part where growing confidence Buckley-era Leda becomes a Colman-era Leda so terminally antisocial that every single interaction is dysfunctional. Is it merely a class thing, and only here, on vacation? Leda’s so rejected her own working class background that all her interactions with working class people are both belligerent and insecure? (She can bond with Will because he’s at least in school, but is also an amenable servant. It’s natural that she would try to bond with Nina, both seeking to be maternal to someone around her daughters’ ages and also instructive in the way the female hiker had been to her.) And sure, there’s an arrested childhood aspect to Leda, having had children young, being better at playing with her daughters than disciplining them. That, or her delicious self-acknowledged meanness, or the strong conflicted feelings she’s always had about having had children at all –
SpoilerShow
all that or something else could be the part that thought it would be “fun” to steal a doll. Movie mocks us for parsing these things when Nina starts wondering if Leda took the doll to teach them a lesson. I'm not going to single-source Leda as selfish, or lean on the line that she's "an unnatural mother" to explain why she's drawn to a plastic child. The character’s successfully complicated enough that I don’t need cause/effect lines or to explain away dizzy spells as conscience pangs or somesuch. What’s missing for me isn’t an aspect of a character but an event, probably something that happened after Leda went back to her family. Something that shattered Leda’s confidence, something that made her need to curl up on a sofa with Betsy Wetsy, something that makes a casual phone call from her more headstrong daughter anything resembling an ending.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#13 Post by Walter Kurtz » Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:56 pm

The Lost Daughter

Unfortunately, the screenplay went missing.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#14 Post by Mr Sausage » Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:34 pm

Walter Kurtz wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:56 pm
The Lost Daughter

Unfortunately, the screenplay went missing.
Don't make posts like this, please. Make a real contribution to the discussion.

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#15 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:41 pm

This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve now spoken to four other people who’ve caught up with this — half with children, half without — and the split between connecting with the film or finding it unsatisfactory has been perfectly correlated so far to whether or not that person is raising kids. Obviously that’s not going to be anything close to universal, but I do wonder if a recognition of (parts of) oneself in the Jessie Buckley character in particular goes a long way toward making the film successful for a lot of people.

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#16 Post by aox » Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:12 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:41 pm
This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve now spoken to four other people who’ve caught up with this — half with children, half without — and the split between connecting with the film or finding it unsatisfactory has been perfectly correlated so far to whether or not that person is raising kids. Obviously that’s not going to be anything close to universal, but I do wonder if a recognition of (parts of) oneself in the Jessie Buckley character in particular goes a long way toward making the film successful for a lot of people.
I'll cosign this. My partner and I don't have kids, and we couldn't connect to it on any level other than Coleman's fantastic performance. It was a very frustrating film for both of us.

On an academic level, the first hour reminded me stylistically of Antonioni, particularly L'avventura. Basically, in the way MG flirts with potential mysteries that are never really solved
SpoilerShow
(have the men deduced she took the doll or do they just not like her and are therefore attempting to intimidate her?)
, and her methodology for attempting to create tension. I also found MG's use of close-ups very similar to Carl Theodor Dreyer's work.

But yeah, I guess we were not the target audience.

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#17 Post by nitin » Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:17 am

It's my favourite of 2021 and I dont have kids (nor am I female)!

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#18 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:54 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 7:41 pm
This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve now spoken to four other people who’ve caught up with this — half with children, half without — and the split between connecting with the film or finding it unsatisfactory has been perfectly correlated so far to whether or not that person is raising kids. Obviously that’s not going to be anything close to universal, but I do wonder if a recognition of (parts of) oneself in the Jessie Buckley character in particular goes a long way toward making the film successful for a lot of people.
I often struggle with formulations like these because a) if true, that seems like a failure on the part of the film not to connect to eagerly-curious audience members who are able to flex empathy muscles towards other experiences outside their own, b) could suppose that the film is therefore alienating against anyone who doesn’t have said experience, or worse, propose that people who don’t know what this specific feeling is like couldn’t possible “get it.” I’m no stranger to making statements that my experiences with addiction and specifically in spiritual fellowships of recovery absolutely color my engagement with certain films- but even though I might comprehend what, say, Sam Levinson is doing in externalizing his grey recovery program into the characters in Malcolm and Marie in a deeper way than some along that specific wavelength, that doesn’t mean that other non-addicts can’t relate to the concepts just as strongly or that, on a surface level, people who have not had toxic relationships like these can’t access the emotions being presented. Plenty of users here who are non-addicts can have empathy for addicts on screen, regardless of how idiosyncratic it’s portrayed to the experience, so while I can appreciate that this film might work for parents in a rawer manner, I would like to believe that many of us are ready to enter films and meet the characters where they’re at with a curious, unconditional approach, and that it’s a failure on the part of the film to not engage others if that becomes a pattern for the ‘out’ group of literal life experience.

For the record, I’m not saying you’re declaring anything definitive around this- you’re not- and I actually appreciate you pointing it out because such anecdotal experience does bring up interesting questions around subjective value. I conversely wonder if a trend in engagement for mostly-parents might indicate a rare psychological validation that you wisely posture at: that parents don’t tend to have that ‘part’ of them that feels repelled by their kids validated from the outside world, that this is taboo and uncomfortable for many to even acknowledge and thus it is hidden away and not given the attention is needs. Allowing space for this through media (or, in my experience, the safe space of a therapy office) could be incredibly relieving for that part and forge a very subjective relationship with the audience member who might feel shame around said part, otherwise not given safe channels to explore elsewhere. However, that doesn’t make it an objectively rich film- though subjectivity matters infinitely more in my opinion, so it’s an interesting point to put out there!

I suppose I’m mostly frustrated that I was ready to engage fully with this film, knowing what wavelength it was operating on in advance, and that I felt the film was actively working to ostracize me from issuing my willing empathy.

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#19 Post by swo17 » Tue Jan 04, 2022 1:08 pm

Kids are awesome, you all should have some (if only to better appreciate certain films)

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#20 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 04, 2022 7:15 pm

I found the film generally well-made, but thin. It felt simultaneously both vague and over-determined, which is the same criticism I'd level at The Power of the Dog (wow, that film made such a deep impression on me that I just had to look up the title to get it correct!), but maybe that's down to their source novels, because in both cases it feels like a literary flaw that gets more exposed when transposed to cinema. It felt to me like aspects of characterization and plot were fudged in favour of facile symbolism, most transparently with the very, very obvious doll.
SpoilerShow
What it represents is too obvious, and the motivation for Leda stealing it in the first place and how she returns it at the end isn't exactly coherent beyond cheap psychologizing and a need to generate easy drama. Plus, the mechanics of how she took it in the midst of all those flapping people is just glossed over in favour of a 'surprise' reveal that surely everybody saw coming. I was half expecting that a late twist would be that everybody knew she was the one who stole the doll and was needling her accordingly, but alas no.
I also felt that the film's rather bold theme of "parenthood is hell" was thoroughly undermined by Leda's generally wonky behaviour. Colman certainly made a go of it, but I felt like her character was more like a bundle of feints at various authorial ideas than a plausible character. (Actually, I agree with brundlefly that "flashback Leda" works better as a character than "current-day Leda", and they don't slot in together very well.)

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#21 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:34 pm

aox wrote:
Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:12 pm
On an academic level, the first hour reminded me stylistically of Antonioni, particularly L'avventura. Basically, in the way MG flirts with potential mysteries that are never really solved
SpoilerShow
(have the men deduced she took the doll or do they just not like her and are therefore attempting to intimidate her?)
See above. I was hoping this might be the case, but the film doesn't really support this reading because:
SpoilerShow
1) Nina's reaction at the end is one of surprise and outrage. it's a very artificial confrontation, but in a writerly way, not because Nina's is doing some kind of perverse double bluff for no good reason. She doesn't strike me as the kind of person to unleash a string of abuse and threats but choke back a "You thought you were so smart, but I knew it all along."
2) The guys in the entourage have been abusive, obnoxious and intimidating towards Leda from the get-go, well before Elena or the doll went missing. It ain't exactly subtle: one of them calls her a cunt to her face the first time he meets her. And the obnoxious behaviour in the movie theatre is directed at everybody. There's no reason to suspect they even know Leda is there until she pipes up.
3) As per the above, it would be totally out of character for these guys to be confrontational in every single encounter they have with Leda but suddenly clam up and become circuitous and passive-aggressive when they actually have something substantial they could confront her about.
I think this is just another instance of the film milking vagueness for depth and ambiguity that isn't really there.

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#22 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:03 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:54 pm
I conversely wonder if a trend in engagement for mostly-parents might indicate a rare psychological validation that you wisely posture at: that parents don’t tend to have that ‘part’ of them that feels repelled by their kids validated from the outside world, that this is taboo and uncomfortable for many to even acknowledge and thus it is hidden away and not given the attention is needs.
zedz wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 7:15 pm
the film's rather bold theme of "parenthood is hell"

Perhaps in line with twbb's observation, I think the reason the film's perspective on parenthood was compelling to me is that it was less direct and simplistic than "parenthood is hell", and instead more of a corrective to the way parenthood in culture is so often shorthanded as "the most important thing in life" — and even further reduced to "the only thing in life" by the many stories that use children in peril as an all-consuming motivator, for example — when in reality children are "one of several important parts of life", alongside sex, partnership, intellectual and professional ambition, etc.
SpoilerShow
So when Buckley's younger Leda leaves her children to pursue some of those other parts of life, she's not rejecting her daughters as hellish impositions — as difficult as they can be — but simply prioritizing those other aspects of her life ahead of them... which is equally horrifying and inexplicable to so many people, and eminently (even enviously) understandable to others.
therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:54 pm
I suppose I’m mostly frustrated that I was ready to engage fully with this film, knowing what wavelength it was operating on in advance, and that I felt the film was actively working to ostracize me from issuing my willing empathy.
Apologies if you've directly written about this before and I'm forgetting, but do you consider your ability to access empathy for characters necessary to enjoy a film? If I remember correctly, you've expressed muted reactions to shows like The Sopranos — in which I don't think it's overly judgmental to say that basically all the main characters are varying degrees of selfish/cruel/avaricious/stupid — so does art primarily populated with unlikable, unredeemed people, as I think this film could be viewed, have an extra hurdle to clear in order to be enjoyable? Or perhaps when it seems that the filmmakers seem to view their own characters with a certain level of distaste or derision?

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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#23 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:54 am

DarkImbecile wrote:
Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:03 am
therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 12:54 pm
I suppose I’m mostly frustrated that I was ready to engage fully with this film, knowing what wavelength it was operating on in advance, and that I felt the film was actively working to ostracize me from issuing my willing empathy.
Apologies if you've directly written about this before and I'm forgetting, but do you consider your ability to access empathy for characters necessary to enjoy a film? If I remember correctly, you've expressed muted reactions to shows like The Sopranos — in which I don't think it's overly judgmental to say that basically all the main characters are varying degrees of selfish/cruel/avaricious/stupid — so does art primarily populated with unlikable, unredeemed people, as I think this film could be viewed, have an extra hurdle to clear in order to be enjoyable? Or perhaps when it seems that the filmmakers seem to view their own characters with a certain level of distaste or derision?
In general I'm a radical humanist (which I know I've made quite clear here), in that I reject that anybody is irredeemable or void of dignity and worth. That doesn't mean that an artist can't draw a complex portrait of their characters- which, as I wrote in my initial writeup for this film, I believe is intended to be both judgment and broad empathy for the 'feeling'- if not for the specific circumstances, and The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or any of those shows work along this plane to flex our muscles of ethical evaluation in a grey space- but in taking the time to do so we are honoring that humanity regardless of where we land. Red Rocket is a great recent example of a film where I think most audience members will completely disregard Rex's character into a rigid categorization (though still finding him, cheaply-put, "interesting" and "captivating" yet not willing to fully engage with him on his psychological level) without holding space for that fair judgment to coexist with empathy for the greater theme of delusions we all engage in in some form, that are a necessary resilience 'to some degree' in such an isolating bootstraps-strung milieu of Americana. It's not always on a filmmaker's agenda to forge complex empathy/judgment lines of exploration, but it's demeaning and, I think, immoral to pathologize others, and I don't see why Gyllenhaal would choose to make, or anyone would enjoy, watching a film like this that is clearly trying to engage with a character, if they believed the aim was to condescendingly gawk at the them. Even if we come down in favor of judgment, films like these (or The Power of the Dog, to use zedz' comparison) are so clearly designed to hold space for both judgment and empathy, and the other option is often feeling superior to the characters (which many audiences members will conflate with being "interested" -empathy+superiority) and it feels ethically wrong to me to go down that road whilst closing the door on any willingness to locate even broad channels of compassion.

So yes, this film is testing us in all the right ways, and Gyllenhaal is admirably making this challenging, but I just don't think she's offering up the bare-minimum outlets for that engagement. If she were deliberately omitting this agenda from her own conceptualization of the material, which I have far too much respect for her and this film and all involved to even consider, that would be a far worse offense.

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The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#24 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jan 05, 2022 1:18 am

In what sense is it unethical to look down on fictional characters?

From an author’s perspective, an author can kill one of their characters. We’d agree that killing humans is more unethical than looking down on them. If we are ok with authors killing their characters, we should be even more ok with authors looking down on them.

From a consumer’s perspective, we can observe a character in their barest and most private moments without their consent. Plainly invading someone’s privacy to this degree is more unethical than holding an attitude towards them (eg. looking down on them). You can see where I’m going with this.

Basically, ethics doesn’t enter into our relations with characters that do not exist. Especially if you subscribe to consequentialist ethics, which I bet most here do.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

#25 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jan 05, 2022 1:52 am

I said "it feels ethically wrong to me" to engage in a purely knee-jerk devaluation, and the "flexing our muscles of ethical evaluation" doesn't always mean that we are going to be perfectly even- we bring our own judgments, notions, and power dynamics (including yes, our invasive position as viewers) into the equation. This isn't a plea to sing Kumbaya around a fire for every character, but that films like this are aiming to be complex, and I was answering DarkImbecile's question with my own personal dismissal of the idea that someone (fictional or literal) should be easily dismissed as irredeemable. There's a difference to me between analyzing how killing off a character is unethical and the process by which we dismiss the worth of a central principal's humanity when there are opportunities to challenge ourselves to see deeper and peripherally, especially in a film like The Lost Daughter that is built around such a character study, and one I think is tragically devoid of richness. I believe such processes of looking down on these characters are detrimental to social engagement outside of fiction, and perhaps I have a personal stake in this, beyond professional codes of ethics, as someone who saw himself in "irredeemable" black-sheep characters growing up (in films clearly designed to feel a mix of empathy and judgment for them) and that shaped my sense of self, but my post was clearly about what I believe subjectively and not an objective analysis you seem to be drawing that reminds me of a puzzle from my college philosophy of logic class.

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