Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
同為埃倫娜費蘭特的原著改編，故事在某程度上正好與第三季《我的天才女友》裡的情節和處境構成了呼應，也可以當做是費蘭特筆下一以貫之的、毫無矯飾的、願意暴露剖析負面/陰暗面的真實女性形象在大熒幕上的呈現。Maagie Gyllenhaal將細膩的心理情緒和張力處理得很好，Olivia Colman更是獻上了無與倫比的精彩表演（ Jessie Buckley也不錯）。
全程充满奇怪的氛围。每个人之间都有奇怪的情绪，敌意，厌恶，情欲。但是又想看下去究竟会发生什么。
故事和主题其实并不新奇了，但这种情绪的表达很在我的点上，Coleman这次二提是很有希望了，吉伦荷拍电影让老公去演激情戏也是没谁了hhhh
整体太乱了... 乱到一切都没有说服力...
平靜的寫下放浪悲情的時代
悬念十足，同时也懂得给观众留给遐想空间，不至于像《Drive My Car》那样过于直白。其次，也许Maggie本身也是一个演员的缘故，里面演员的神情、状态、感觉都比较细腻，令人深刻。电影给了一个不一样的“坏”母亲，赋予了不一样的可能性。PS：因为是同一个作者，里面Nina和Elena不自然由想起了那不勒斯的四部曲的宇宙（笑）。 / 2022.6.11 家
这两个少年，简单纯粹到在伍佰的少年吔安啦的歌词就可以写的明明白白，歌曲和电影是天作之合。
我私心的喜欢，其实一大部分喜欢还是来自埃莱娜的原著，虽然还没看到，但是一眼就能确定是她会关注到的会写作的风格。我也蛮没想到The lost daughter这个名字，其实讲的是母职惩罚的故事。除了科尔曼，尤其喜欢演young Leda的Jessie，她可真漂亮，达妹的角色外表看起来就已经产后抑郁很严重的样子了。
台语很有味道，太野了。可惜油管上的画质也糊的可怜。两位少年表现的非常自然。我居然看见罗大佑了！
右声道粤语、国语、闽南话……这做压制的人真是…… 黑涩会+台湾迷茫青春。用以给《南国再见，南国》或《牯岭街》爱好者解馋的片子
作为生活中只担任过女儿角色的我，来看这部电影，那种对爱的回应的渴求无果，强迫症般，多么熟悉，如此窒息。本想可怜被孩子玩弄的手中的娃娃，却赫然发现她对着娃娃叫妈妈，而这个被蹂躏的娃娃却又被女主偷走尝试修复，一个又一个的连环，一圈套着一圈，这就是作为女性永远也逃脱不了的人生困境。可笑的是，虽然家是所有一切的罪魁祸首，但家依旧是那个落荒而逃的你的避难圣地。
感覺像是披著台灣新電影的外衣，但內容還不夠成熟，長鏡頭用在開場的槍殺比較有新意，中後段不斷切空鏡就顯得有些單調，原聲帶的陣容現在大概再也找不到了
？？？ 鍾意玩公仔嘅人都有啲病態 唔止於長不大的孩子 但因為隻洋娃娃而憶起自己係「fail mom」，又搞到成個氣氛好似死左個囡好後悔好壓抑咁嘅氛圍就好一頭霧水⋯⋯（尤其在電影院被一群胡鬧進場的年青人氣到委屈到淚汪汪就更不解）難道看到體面的mother figure 狼狽起來又好獵奇嗎⋯⋯ 女人呀母親呀小孩呀⋯⋯傳遞的能量都令觀眾（我）好煩躁 ///// my lost grandmother： 想起我婆婆年青時的故事 大概就是作為「fail mom」一生的愧疚、困惑（陰影）與昔日當下為生活追尋的矛盾 //// 生仔無牌考 但有無老母仔囡生活都係會硬住頭皮過 不過可能會跳下掣 😂 身心精神健康關注 人生～～ 咁樣
原来还在威尼斯拿了剧本奖。数个闪回逐渐拼凑出女主角前史的同时也完善了她的行为动机。在玩偶娃娃这一道具上做足了戏。科尔曼的表演挺打动我的，配乐也很好听。作为导演处女作来说可算是出手不凡。
对母职的探讨浅尝辄止，Olivia和Jessie的表演撑起了整部电影。
全片埋在無法預料的懸疑氣氛中，就連真相披露以後也還是令人不安，不是個愉快的觀影過程。
与台湾新浪潮美学一脉相承的黑帮片，一众实力派演员为两个青涩的小主演铺出了高可信度的叙事环境。电影的技巧很丰富，纵深调度，镜面，自然遮挡，声音引导，绵长的凝视镜头，POV，每场戏都做了充分独特的构思，也因此少了像侯孝贤一以贯之的自然流畅感，多了几分匠气。人物的情绪流露自然到让人惊讶，青春冲动，乡土情结，代际关系，以及充满叛逆的文化符号，没有特别集中的冲突和充满野心的宏大叙事，而是用轻弹的笔触勾勒出成人的污秽世界，裹挟其中、沉溺其中的少年终将被暴力吞噬。
PS：杰西·巴克利演很好！
真的糙。下载的版本还是个粤语配音版。。高捷迷人，出来混就要跟高捷这样的大哥，陈浩南山鸡哥不行。配乐也棒，林强和罗大佑合唱《皇后大道东》，炫酷。
同名主题曲实在太好听。若干年前大学课堂的记忆
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