Motherhood

Entirely gripping: The Lost Daughter reviewed

The Lost Daughter is an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel about motherhood that says, quite ferociously: it’s complicated. And: mothers aren’t necessarily motherly, and can feel ambivalence. You’d think it was unfilmable, particularly as the central character describes herself as someone even she doesn’t understand but, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal — it’s her directorial debut — and starring Olivia Colman, this film is entirely gripping. No ambivalence on that count. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNq9YOfL0Zs Colman could play a bedside table and somehow bring depth, feeling, an internal landscape It is carried by Colman who is tremendous, and is being tipped as a potential Oscar winner, if that matters.

The cure becomes the problem: The Seduction, by Joanna Briscoe, reviewed

Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home. Both are domesticated mavericks with a reluctantly wandering eye: frustrated mothers looking for lovers to mirror their dormant wildness back at them. The fact that Briscoe’s work feels familiar — sharing the same bohemian preoccupations with adultery, motherhood and quirky interiors as other purveyors of the unfairly maligned Hampstead novel — is no bad thing. The author has a fine eye for aesthetic detail and an even finer one for parental relationships. The star of the show is not actually Beth’s love life, but her heart-breaking attempts to revive her relationship with her daughter.