this is maggie gyllenhaal s and all s directorial debut. she is a comparative literature teacher on holiday in greece. she sees dakota johnson as a young mother who suddenly disappears on a beach. there s a moment of panic, where is the child? but what happens is she looks back into her own past and look at decisions she made in a former life when she s played byjesse buckley. two actors playing the same character in very different ways. maggie gyllenhaal always said as far as she was concerned, when she read the novella, she felt it was saying things about being a woman, being a mother, being a professional who had not been set out loud before. and she loved the idea of making it into a conversation.