This is a long and confusing story about an academic (Olivia Colman) on vacation in Greece whose idyll is interrupted by a loud and sinister family from New York City. One of the women has a small child and it causes Colman to have a series of flashbacks to when she had small daughters who smothered her while she was a doctoral candidate (or a young professor, hard to tell).
The girl on the beach goes missing and Colman finds her. She returns the kid to the loud family but steals the kid's doll which was in the sea. She becomes vaguely friendly with the young mother but is untrusting of the others in the group. There's also a odd "cabana boy" and an old American (Ed Harris) who seems to be her landlord.
As the vacation progresses, we see thru flashbacks more of Colman's dislike of being a mother to squalling brats and Colman seems to be mentally deteriorating between the bitter memories and the ominous family that is everywhere. She spends some time trying to clean up the waterlogged doll but it triggers more flashbacks.
Colman seems to be losing her mind. One final confrontation reveals the truth about her daughters and sets us up for an ambiguous ending on the beach.
Colman is certainly very good but the story is so vague it's hard to get involved with the characters.
The girl on the beach goes missing and Colman finds her. She returns the kid to the loud family but steals the kid's doll which was in the sea. She becomes vaguely friendly with the young mother but is untrusting of the others in the group. There's also a odd "cabana boy" and an old American (Ed Harris) who seems to be her landlord.
As the vacation progresses, we see thru flashbacks more of Colman's dislike of being a mother to squalling brats and Colman seems to be mentally deteriorating between the bitter memories and the ominous family that is everywhere. She spends some time trying to clean up the waterlogged doll but it triggers more flashbacks.
Colman seems to be losing her mind. One final confrontation reveals the truth about her daughters and sets us up for an ambiguous ending on the beach.
Colman is certainly very good but the story is so vague it's hard to get involved with the characters.