IN THE SPOTLIGHT
where she is transfixed by a younger mother and her daughter.
Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley play the lead, Leda, at different stages of life. Colman’s Leda is vacationing in Greece when she notices Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter on the same beach and makes a bizarre decision involving the daughter’s doll.
Gyllenhaal said Ferrante’s novels present, “Secret truths about a feminine experience in the world that I really liked having spoken out loud... It seemed like a kind of dangerous, exciting thing to try. That was why I wanted to try to adapt it into a film.”
She corresponded with Ferrante who gave notes on the script, which takes many creative liberties with the text, including making Leda British and Nina American, instead of Italian. The Italian author was supportive, wanting Gyllenhaal to make it her own. But Ferrante did say one thing: It was very important that Leda “not be crazy.” If she was, it would make the story dismissible.
“I’m very grateful that she wasn’t depicted as someone with madness,” Colman said. “That’s what I loved about it.”
Colman found the prospect of playing someone who does something unthinkable exciting.
“All people want to be one person, turns out they’re not that person and they’re probably someone else,” Colman said. “It was intriguing to play a character who does something that I wouldn’t do, but (maybe) I’ve thought about it.”