After landing Oscar winner Olivia Colman to lead earlier this year, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut The Lost Daughter has expanded its cast with the recently Emmy nominated actor Paul Mescal (Normal People), according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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In addition to Colman, Mescal joins a star-studded roster that already includes Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose, Fargo), Dakota Johnson (The Peanut Butter Falcon, Bad Times at the El Royale) and Peter Sarsgaard (Jackie, Blue Jasmine).
First published in 2006, Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter novel begins with Leda (Colman), a middle-aged divorcée and a college English professor who goes on a vacation on the Italian coast after her two daughters left her to visit their father in Canada. The story explores the conflicting emotions between a mother’s relationship toward her children.
Its’ official synopsis reads: “When her daughters leave home, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in southern Italy. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things begin to take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless, event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The apparently serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past.”
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The Lost Daughter will be written and directed by Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal, who will also serve as a producer along with Talia Kleinhendler and Osnat Handelsman-Keren through their Pie Films banner. Samuel Marshall Productions’ Charlie Dorfman will also produced the film and finance it alongside Endeavor Content.
(Photo Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images)
