Mary Eastham

I love the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and couldn't wait to watch this film on Netflix, her first feature directorial debut based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. I got up early lwith a kid's excitement on Christmas morning. Got comfy. The movie started out slow. That's ok. But I just didn't see what was supposed to be this connection between the professor Leda and the young mother Nina. Dakota Johnson's Nina stares were bizarre. Her character says later in the film she's sometimes depressed. But honestly, I thought maybe she was just constipated. I honestly didn't like or dislike her. Worse, I didn't care about her. At all. The pregnant sister in law and her loud family from Queens had way too much screen time. I kept hoping she would drown!!! Or shoot Leda so the film would end! And Leda stealing Nina's little girl's doll and sleeping on the couch with it. Again, bizarre.The most powerful parts of the film were scenes featuring young mother Leda, her kids, her husband, her affair, the conflict all mother's face between being fully present in their children's lives and being intellectually stimulated, still, by their careers. I'm a writer so I'll have to think of ways I would have changed the structure of the film. I liked Ed Harris's character and I liked Maggie Gyllenhaal's husband's character.That's when the film got interesting for me. But their roles were limiting. I so wanted to love this film.