THE LOST DAUGHTER (NETFLIX)

Those familiar with author Elena Ferrante (“My Brilliant Friend”) will recognize the labyrinth of complexities, especially contemporary women, endure; “Leda” is no exception; in the remarkable hands of first time director Maggie Gyllenhaal and sublime actor Olivia Colman, Leda’s layers of familial history unfold intentionally through flashbacks; young Leda depicted with alacrity by Jessie Buckley; the background for the unveiling is the lush landscape of an idyllic, Greece; Leda, a college professor, vacationing from Boston becomes mesmerized by a sinuous young woman “Nina” (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter, “Elena”; they trigger unsettling memories of a faulty motherhood and the daunting chaos children present to a woman in search of her own scholarship; emotional, intellectual hurdles, blinding transparency; decisions as to “thine own self be true” or to progeny, unwittingly brought into your realm.

Leda, slowly dwarfed by her memories, takes Elena’s abused doll; symbolizing a precious childhood doll gifted to her unappreciative daughter and destroyed; her protection of this “lost” toy, a metaphor for unreconciled failures. Reliving her life through Nina’s (a confused, half-witted, “damsel in distress”), regretting an affair with “Professor Hardy” (well-played cameo role by Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal’s husband); Nina pierces Leda’s fantastical fug, empowering the offerings of the present to transcend the liabilities of the past.

FOUR STARS!!!!

Peneflix