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Passes the Bechdel test

The Lost Daughter

2021. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, written by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Elena Ferrante.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    7 women characters. 8 of them speak.
  2. Yes 2. Who talk to each other
    In 22 scenes out of 140.
  3. Yes 3. About something besides a man
    In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3.

Poster for The Lost Daughter

The film

Leda is a middle-aged divorcee devoted to her work as an English teacher and to her two children. When her daughters leave home to be with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarrassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in Greece. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult, unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The seemingly serene tale of a woman's pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past.

Released
31 Dec 2021
Genres
Drama
Rated
R
IMDb
6.6 / 10
Metascore
86 / 100
Awards
Nominated for 3 Oscars. 41 wins & 114 nominations total
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Leda 277 lines, woman
  2. Young Leda 109 lines, woman
  3. Nina 80 lines, woman
  4. Lyle 73 lines, man
  5. Callie 53 lines, woman
  6. Will 47 lines, man
  7. Joe 34 lines, man
  8. Bianca 29 lines, woman
  9. Professor Hardy 22 lines, man
  10. Martha 18 lines, woman
Full cast, 24 people
  • Olivia Colman as Leda Caruso
  • Jessie Buckley as Young Leda Caruso
  • Dakota Johnson as Nina
  • Ed Harris as Lyle
  • Paul Mescal as Will
  • Peter Sarsgaard as Professor Hardy
  • Dagmara Dominczyk as Callie
  • Jack Farthing as Joe
  • Alba Rohrwacher as Female Hiker
  • Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Toni
  • Panos Koronis as Vasili
  • Robyn Elwell as Bianca
  • Ellie Mae Blake as Martha
  • Alexandros Mylonas as Professor Cole
  • Nikos Poursanidis as Male Hiker
  • Athena Martin Anderson as Elena
  • Spyros Maragoudakis as Rough Boy 1
  • Konstantinos Samaa as Rough Boy 2
  • Emmanouela Zacharopoulou as Woman at Ticket Window
  • Alma Stansil as Babysitter
  • Daniela Babek as Female Italian Scholar
  • Ellie James as Older Bianca
  • Isabelle Della-Porta as Older Martha
  • Vassilis Koukalani as Maurice (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 1% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 140

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 300
4 to 634
7 to 91110
10 to 1200
13 to 1554
16 to 1810
19 to 2160
22 to 2450
25 to 2760
28 to 30434
31 to 3300
34 to 361911
37 to 3930
40 to 4230
43 to 45230
46 to 48190
49 to 512812
52 to 542717
55 to 57116
58 to 60374
61 to 6300
64 to 6660
67 to 6934
70 to 7200
73 to 75148
76 to 782714
79 to 8100
82 to 842424
85 to 871618
88 to 90220
91 to 9370
94 to 9653
97 to 9906
100 to 102129
103 to 1051718
106 to 10811
109 to 111102
112 to 11487
115 to 117650
118 to 120122
121 to 123119
124 to 12642
127 to 12923
130 to 1321515
133 to 135580
136 to 13800
139 to 14040

The evidence

  • Straight from the script
  • Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
BIANCA: Now you have to cut it. BIANCA: I’m sorry but you do. You shouldn’t give her gum, mama, even in the car. MARTHA: No no no no mama no no. BIANCA: Yes, mama she does have to cut it now or the whole head will get sticky.
ELENA: Is that enough, Mama? Want more? NINA: Yes please. I want a lot more. ELENA: Want more Neni? NINA: Oh yes please Elena. It’s so very, very hot today.
YOUNG LEDA: Smell... BIANCA AND MARTHA: Peel it like a snake. Don’t let it break. YOUNG LEDA: You know why they call it a navel orange? Do you know another word for navel? YOUNG LEDA: Belly button! See doesn’t it look like a belly button?
CALLIE: Right? You don’t mind moving. LEDA: No, I’m fine here. CALLIE: It’s just about switching umbrellas. So my family can be together. LEDA: I understand, but I have no desire to move.
CALLIE: Would you like a piece of cake? LEDA: Thank you. No. CALLIE: I’m sorry about earlier. It’s my birthday. LEDA: Happy Birthday.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 73 are women's.

593 lines from women, 217 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

7 women and 10 men in the cast. 8 women and 8 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 2 of 819. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 8 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 70% of the words (4,749), men 30% (2,026). Women have 73% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Run the other way, for men, the film scores 2 out of 3.

Conversations between two named characters

Exhibit F: behind the camera

8 of the 13 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 40% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
Maggie Gyllenhaal (woman)
Written by
Maggie Gyllenhaal (woman)
From the novel by
Elena Ferrante (woman)
Produced by
Maggie Gyllenhaal (woman), Talia Kleinhendler (woman), Osnat Handelsman-Keren (man), Charles Dorfman (man)
Shot by
Hélène Louvart (woman)
Edited by
Affonso Gonçalves (man)
Music by
Dickon Hinchliffe (man)
Production design by
Inbal Weinberg (woman)
Costumes by
Edward K. Gibbon (man)
Cast by
Kahleen Crawford (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Production

    5 women, 6 men, 9 not listed

  • Sound

    2 women, 10 men, 2 not listed

  • Art

    1 women, 1 men, 9 not listed

  • Costume & Make-Up

    3 women, 2 men, 4 not listed

  • Camera

    1 women, 3 men, 3 not listed

  • Directing

    2 women, 1 men, 2 not listed

  • Lighting

    0 women, 0 men, 4 not listed

  • Other crew

    0 women, 0 men, 2 not listed

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit G: how old the stars were

Women: 39 on average. Men: 43 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Jessie Buckley 31, Dakota Johnson 32, Alba Rohrwacher 42, Dagmara Dominczyk 45, Olivia Colman 47

Men

Paul Mescal 25, Oliver Jackson-Cohen 35, Jack Farthing 36, Peter Sarsgaard 50, Ed Harris 71

Exhibit H: the money

It made 14% of what it cost.

Budget
$5 million
Box office
$703,281

From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 140 scenes and 819 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works

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