Film: “The Lost Daughter” directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal

I

n Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” (Netflix), Olivia Colman plays Leda, a comp-lit professor vacationing alone on a Greek island. What she believes will be a quiet idyllic stay is disrupted by the arrival of a large extended Greek-American family, who jam the beach with large boats, beach umbrellas, kids, and Queens accents.

One day, one of the little girls strays from the beach. As everyone runs around madly in search of her, Leda heads for a nearby woodland and locates the child—but when nobody is looking, swipes her doll. The child, now safe and sound, is distraught that the doll is gone. Leda sees this and keeps the doll anyway. Why?

The answer is eventually supplied by flashbacks to Leda as a young woman (played by the amazing Jesse Buckley) who had young daughters and parental challenges of her own.

The plot, I am told, stays fairly true to the Elena Ferrante novel except the locale is now Greece instead of Italy. However, if you’ve not read the novel (and candidly I’ve never made it through half of anything she’s written), this will make a difference only to EF’s most ardent fans.

The cast includes Ed Harris as a seventy-something American expat; Dakota Johnson as the mother of the distraught child; and Paul Mescal (“Normal People”) as a handsome Irish summer worker. And Dagmara Domińczyk (who played Gerry on “Succession”) is totally unrecognizable as Cali, the snotty Queens matriarch.

Olivia Colman once again proves she can play any role she’s handed, and first-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal proves talent in the family isn’t confined to Jake. Suspenseful, quiet and deserving of your attention. And in this brutal Northeast winter, that Greek beach looks especially deserving of your attention.