Lost Girls (2020): A Mother’s Crusade

Image Courtesy of Archer Gray and Langley Park Productions

By Nick Sansone

Few genres have experienced the massive boom over the last several years that true crime has. Thanks to the tremendous popularity of documentary series such as “Making a Murderer” and podcasts like “Serial,” many people have found themselves obsessed and addicted to often-gruesome and sensationalistic stories of murder and the investigations that ensue. And while some have criticized the genre for being exploitative and disrespectful to the victims of murder cases, there has been increasing demand for true crime films/series/podcasts that focus on the stories of crime victims and survivors and the systemic failings that lead to these crimes (i.e., the “Canadian True Crime” podcast, Netflix’s “The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez,” the upcoming “Killing Theodore” docuseries, etc.). You can add Lost Girls (2020), a Sundance Film Festival selection recently released on Netflix, to this category.

Based on events surrounding the Long Island Serial Killer, Lost Girls tells the story of Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan), a single mother of three girls living in Ellenville, N.Y., when she discovers that her oldest daughter, Shannan, has dropped off the face of the Earth. After a series of failed efforts to call Shannan, Mari’s middle daughter, Sherre (Thomasin McKenzie), receives an extremely unusual call from Shannan’s boyfriend inquiring into her whereabouts. After interrogating said boyfriend about when he last saw Shannan, Mari eventually learns from a driver that Shannan was working as an escort in the Oak Beach community of Long Island, ran from a client’s house and subsequently vanished.

Stunned, Mari turns to the Suffolk County Police Department, where she finds out that Shannan had made an alarming 9-1-1 call the night she disappeared and it took the police almost an hour to arrive. They seem incredibly indifferent to Shannan’s case, repeatedly dismissing her as a “missing hooker” and, without outright saying it, implying she is to blame for her own disappearance. However, some time later, a police officer and his dog come upon a young woman’s body in a burlap sack off Ocean Parkway on Long Island. While the body was not identified as Shannan’s, it leads to the discovery of three more bodies of young women in the same area, and soon enough, the authorities begin investigating the possibility of there being an active serial killer on the loose.

Convinced that the discovery of the bodies and Shannan’s disappearance are connected, Mari continues pressing the authorities to investigate Shannan’s case while Mari’s other two daughters use Facebook to connect with the families of the four dead young women in a display of solidarity. Ultimately, it wasn’t until eighteen months after Shannan’s disappearance that her body was found, along with the bodies of ten more young women in the same marsh area off Ocean Parkway. Those already familiar with the real-life case know that the Long Island Serial Killer has never been found or identified, although the film makes a compelling case for why a certain Oak Beach resident should be considered the prime suspect.

One of the first things that came to mind after viewing this film is how easy it would have been for any filmmaker dramatizing this story to focus the storyline on the serial killer and the gruesome details of what he did to these women. However, in making this film, first-time narrative director Liz Garbus (a two-time Oscar nominee for the documentaries The Farm: Angola, USA (1998) and What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015) ) decided to shine a light on the families of the victims and the trauma that comes from both losing a loved one and facing uncaring authority figures who dismiss the murder of a young woman simply because she was a sex worker, and that is very much where Lost Girls’ strength lies.

Perhaps the most crucial decision that Garbus and screenwriter Michael Werwie (who also wrote Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) for Netflix) made is centering this film around Mari Gilbert. While there have been many films centered around a mother seeking justice for her child (including the Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) ), using this angle to examine a real-life case allows for unique insight and an extra level of emotional depth. What this film lacks in technical flourishes (the cinematography by Igor Martinović and editing by Camilla Toniolo, with a few exceptions, are very basic and restrained) it more than makes up for in depth and how it allows the viewer to strongly empathize with Mari Gilbert. She clearly loves her daughters and wants the best for them, but her life as a poor, single, working-class mother has not allowed her to truly care for them. Throughout the film, the audience sees how several years of this personal struggle has finally come to a head in the most painful and tragic way imaginable.

And all of this is brought to life thanks to a powerful performance by Amy Ryan. This is one of the best performances of her career, as she channels a palpable anger and pain, along with a strong sense of regret for her inability to give Shannan a better life, to powerful effect. This is particularly evident in one scene midway through when Mari is confronted by her middle daughter, Sherre, who overhears Mari admitting to giving Shannan up to foster care when she was younger. The genuine pain and sadness present in this scene and in Ryan’s performance is more than enough to elevate Lost Girls beyond any generic TV movie treatment of a story like this.

Ryan’s performance is backed by strong supporting players. Thomasin McKenzie brings much depth and sadness to the role of Sherre, a subtly impactful performance that further cements McKenzie as one of our great young actresses (along with her remarkable performances in both Jojo Rabbit (2019) and Leave No Trace (2018) ). Dean Winters and Gabriel Byrne are also strong as the central authority figures who manage to be infuriating in their incompetence while not descending into evil caricatures. And Reed Birney’s brief turn as a rich doctor is so quietly eerie that it will almost certainly send chills down any viewer’s spine.

Image Courtesy of Archer Gray and Langley Park Productions

All that being said, there’s something about the film that feels rushed and incomplete. It runs a very tight 95 minutes, and while it certainly does not waste a second of its running time, there are aspects of the film that can’t help but feel truncated, and that if the film were longer (or perhaps even done as a limited series, i.e. Netflix’s “Unbelievable”) it could have been elevated from good to great. For example, throughout the film, very little attention is paid to Mari’s youngest daughter, Sarra (played by Oona Laurence), who is clearly battling some sort of mental illness that the film briefly acknowledges at certain points before ignoring it again. It is only through the film’s epilogue title cards that the ultimate effect of Sarra’s mental illness on herself and her family is revealed, and the reveal is so jarring that it almost forces viewers to reevaluate what they spent the previous 95 minutes watching.

Also, while the presence of the families of the other four dead young women allows there to be a sense of solidarity among the characters, they are not fleshed out in a way that allows the audience to have the same emotional attachment to them as we do to Mari and her family. Even an attempt to establish a bond between Mari and one of the other victim’s sisters (played by Lola Kirke) ends up feeling forced and ineffective. Then there’s the simple fact that this case remains unsolved, so by nature there was never going to be the type of closure or catharsis in this film that there would be in a film dealing with a closed case. And while a lack of closure or catharsis doesn’t have to be a bad thing in film, it helps to go in with the expectation that the ending will not leave the viewer satisfied, in the traditional sense anyway.

So perhaps the incomplete feeling that the film evokes was intentional on the part of Garbus and Werwie. After all, it is the feeling that Mari and her daughters and the families of the other dead young women all felt, or anybody else who has lost a loved one so abruptly and inexplicably. While I still think this film could have been even more effective if it had allowed more time for certain supporting characters to be fleshed out and for the audience to gain a better understanding of Mari’s relationship with her other daughters, this is still a very effective true crime drama. It delivers a remarkable central performance and powerful messages about solidarity and holding authority figures accountable for their incompetent and uncaring ways. 

But most importantly, Lost Girls humanizes both sex workers and their families, and it allows the audience to feel strong empathy for an admittedly imperfect mother who will do whatever she can to ensure justice is served for her daughter. So while a film with a lack of closure or catharsis might not be what audiences want when there is very little of either in our world right now, I would still recommend this film if you’re looking for important, well-acted, emotional, and empathy-generating viewing at home during this time of quarantining and social distancing.

Nick Sansone is a writer and aspiring filmmaker from Chicago. A recent summa cum laude graduate of DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts, he continues to study film independently and has appeared on different radio programs in the Chicagoland area to discuss contemporary cinema and the Academy Awards.