«I am a non-natural mother». Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter An interdisciplinary inquiry into love, hate and the overwhelming guilt of a mother

Abstract

I address the theme of «Love and Hate» with an analysis of Maggie Gyllenhall’s film The Lost Daughter (2021). The film’s plot is based on the novel by the same name by Italian writer Elena Ferrante, a pseudonym. Leda is a 48-year-old professor of translation and lives in Cambridge, close to Boston. It is unclear if she teaches at Harvard. She is divorced and had daughters Marta and Bianca early on while trying to embark on an academic career. While on a working holiday on a Greek island, Leda makes the acquaintance of a brash, brazen, and imposing clan from New York City that commands the beach for itself. Especially the young mother Nina takes a shine to the elder educated woman, who appears self-confident and independent. Confronted with Nina’s self-doubts about being a good mother, Leda is catapulted back into her memories of her love and hate for her daughters.

Hannah Arendt’s definition of love in her PhD dissertation Love and Saint Augustine and Plutarch’s definition of hate in his Moralia serve as the philosophical backbone of my analysis. In the conclusion, I address the political movement of «The Voluntary Extinction of Mankind» asking a moral question: Should one have children?