Jessie Buckley's Dark Turn in The Lost Daughter

After drawing widespread attention for her performance in Hamnet, Jessie Buckley’s earlier work in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter deserves a second look. That film, released in 2021 on Netflix, introduced Buckley in a very different register from the grief-wrought Agnes that has made her an awards favorite this season.

Olivia Colman plays Leda Caruso, a university professor whose holiday in Greece becomes a meditation on memory and regret. The Lost Daughter cuts between Colman’s present-day Leda and flashbacks to her younger self, with Buckley portraying the woman raising two daughters and increasingly on edge.

It is in those flashback scenes that Buckley’s work is most striking: inward, volatile and self-destructive in ways that diverge sharply from her later, more overtly anguished roles. Her performance provided early evidence of range, helped earn her a 2022 nomination, and allowed the film to explore the complicated strains of motherhood without forcing easy sympathy.

Greece

jessie buckley, lost daughter, maggie gyllenhaal, olivia colman, leda caruso, hamnet, netflix, flashbacks, motherhood, awards