Elena Ferrante’s rich and nuanced novel is the source material for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s outstanding directorial debut, which won Gyllenhaal the Best Screenplay award when it premiered to huge acclaim at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.

 

Leda (Olivia Colman) is a middle-aged academic attempting to relax into a solitary summer holiday by the sea when she finds herself both distracted and disturbed by a family newly arrived from New York – and specifically by Nina (Dakota Johnson), a younger mother of a clingy daughter, whose presence leads Leda to consider past troubles in her past as a mother of two young girls. With a stellar cast (Jessie Buckley, Ed Harris and Peter Sarsgaard also feature) and beautiful photography by Hélène Louvart (Happy as Lazzaro, Rocks), Gyllenhaal unlocks the quietly gripping drama of Ferrante’s novel – and in Colman, she has the perfect protagonist.