The Lost Daughter: 10 Best Quotes | Screen Rant
Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, follows the story of a professor who, while watching a young mother, realizes some of her own mistakes that she made in raising her two daughters.
The Lost Daughter is packed full of outstanding performances and substantial dialogue that Gyllenhaal wrote. Some of the best quotes in this film are the most memorable of any Oscar-nominated film of 2021 because of how true they can feel for every mother out there.
Professor Hardy is an academic with a poet's heart who captures the interest of young Leda when he praises her work on Ricœur. Not only is he an intelligent charmer, but he also truly finds the work that Leda's doing, fascinating, which is exciting for her because she finally feels seen.
This line in The Lost Daughter, which is one of the best Netflix films by a female director, specifically makes a reference to the fact that "cœur" in French means heart and that his ideas are deeply soulful and meaningful. All in all, this quote proves that Hardy has a unique flare for the academic world, but he understands in a casual way, which intrigues Leda.
Professor Hardy says this line in the same speech in which he states the previous quote, however, this has some real relevance to Leda's journey in The Lost Daughter, which is a great movie debut by a female director.
In a way, Leda suppressed her doubting of her own happiness when she was younger, which was why she impulsively cheated and even left her family for three years. Not to mention, when she was suppressing her own doubt, she was not always the kindest to her daughters and would lash out by disciplining them.
This is another great quote from Professor Hardy because he doesn't force himself on Leda, he proves that there is an attraction that goes both ways and then lets her make the final step. Because she's married, he gives her the power to decide if she wants to put her relationship on the line.
This is a simple quote, however, it's important because it's reminding both Leda and the audience that happiness is not always the priority because sometimes loyalty and family is worth more. Leda decided to choose her own happiness, knowing that she alone made that choice.
Olivia Colman, who has starred in some of the best movies of the past several years, delivers this line is truly heartbreaking. She knows that she was in the wrong for leaving her daughters and she says the "I left" part with so much solemnity. In a way, telling Nina gave her the ability to see just how flawed her decision was.
What makes this moment even more saddening is the fact that shortly after this she admits to loving the 3 years she spent away from her children. It shows that she knows she's made the wrong choice for her family because she decided to live for herself and didn't care enough to stay.
Again, this quote encapsulates one of the main themes of this film which is Leda's choice to live for herself or live for someone else, meaning, her two daughters. She knows that she isn't the perfect and that her own selfish desires drove her away and then back to them.
She left her children because she wanted happiness and she came back to them because she missed the happiness she had. All this is to say, she's never going to be satisfied because there's not a way to maintain her own joy while trying to promote someone else's at the same time.
This rhyming line is repeated multiple times throughout the movie and it shows a connection between Leda, Martha and Bianca that transcends the time that they spend together. It what Leda says as she peels oranges into ribbons, which look like snakes.
For Leda, this activity is one of the few positive experiences she can remember about raising her girls because it was one of the few things they could all focus on together. It proves that the simplest joys can have the most impactful impressions on people.
Leda admits this to Nina after telling her that she took Elena's doll from the beach and has no idea why. This line is her final way of saying that she has never been ready to be a mother. She has never repaired her own inner child enough to be a better mother to them.
Obviously, she still has a relationship with her daughters, but being an "unnatural mother" means that she's never felt that bond or instinctual reaction towards her children that every mother is supposed to have.
Leda says this to Nina when her daughter goes missing one day on the beach. They instantly connect and this is the only thing that even somewhat calms down Nina when she's frantically looking for Elena.
In a way, this line shows that even though Leda doesn't believe she has motherly tendencies, she can unintentionally come across as an understanding and motherly presence. Her relationship with Nina is how she decides whether or not she might still know how to be a good mother all these years later.
Leda says this to the young man that works on the beach when she has dinner with him. She spends the entire meal talking about how wonderfully different her and her daughters are from each other and how amazing it is to be their mother.
She says all this, knowing, her favorite parts of them are things that she directly lacks. In a way, it's her admitting that they were better off without her because they didn't become like her. She praises the fact that they were influenced by other, greater factors than her own parenting and love.
This line is one of the most iconic of The Lost Daughter, which has many best movies like it, because it directly address the struggles that both Leda and Nina face in raising their children.
Leda knows the sacrifices that she had to make in her life to put either her or her children first and each one of them was extremely brutal for to remember. Sometimes the responsibility of parenthood is not just to care for other humans, but to give the kids more attention than one gives to themselves.