Olivia Colman to star in harrowing Elena Ferrante adaptation - and it features an all-star cast

After her stint on The Crown, Olivia Colman is back in Hollywood - and we can’t wait to see the results of her latest project, an adaptation of revered Italian novelist Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter.

The film also stars, and will be directed by, Maggie Gyllenhaal, in her directorial debut. Maggie was so moved by the book that she felt compelled to set about working on an adaptation straight away.

“When I finished reading Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter, I felt that something secret and true had been said out loud. And I was both disturbed and comforted by that. I immediately thought how much more intense the experience would be in a movie theatre, with other people around," she said in a statement about the film.

“And I set to work on this adaptation. I find that the script has attracted other people interested in exploring these secret truths about motherhood, sexuality, femininity, desire. And I’m thrilled to continue my collaboration with such brave and exciting actors and filmmakers.”

Who is ‘The Lost Daughter’?

It’s unclear from the plot exactly who the title refers to, but the plot centres around two women and their experiences of motherhood. Leda, played by Olivia Colman, is a professor staying near the ocean, who by a chance encounter becomes transfixed by a young woman she sees playing on the beach with her daughter (Nina, played by Dakota Johnson). As her intrigue turns to obsession, Leda begins to confront her own family history and past trauma.

What can we expect from the film?

Described on Amazon as ‘a complex, controlled and piercing meditation on motherhood and womanhood,’ the emotional storyline follows two women and their struggles.

Back in 2018, Elena wrote an open letter to Maggie in a Guardian (opens in new tab) column, giving her creative license to pursue her interpretation of the film.

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‘It’s important for me – for her, for all women – that her work be hers and turn out well,’ Elena Ferrante wrote. ‘Mine already exists, with its strengths and defects.

'In the great warehouse of the arts, set up mainly by men, women have for a relatively short time been seeking the means and opportunities to give a form of their own to what they have learned from life. So I don’t want to say: you have to stay inside the cage that I constructed.’

Who stars in The Lost Daughter alongside Olivia Colman?

Olivia Colman joins a host of famous faces for the film, including Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose, Judy), Dakota Johnson (Bad Times at the El Royale, The Peanut Butter Falcon), and Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State, The Magnificent Seven).

When will The Lost Daughter hit screens in the UK?

The Lost Daughter is currently in pre-production, so a date hasn’t been set yet.