2023 Movie
Dir. Catherine Hardwicke · United States of America · English, Portuguese
A decently made but formulaic melodrama that never arrives at the emotions it wants to elicit
Yet another drama designed to be emotional without actually doing the heavy lifting to get us invested, Prisoner’s Daughter takes the easy way out at every turn, mistaking its use of capital-I Issues and dramatic plot points for substantial writing. This doesn’t mean that the film itself isn’t still watchable and competently performed (by a typically strong Brian Cox, but especially by Kate Beckinsale); it just fails to make a statement about any of its disparate parts mashed together. At the end of the day, it feels as if the film doesn’t have enough faith in the already complex and difficult relationship at its center, so it attempts to dress it up with prison, cancer, drug addicts, and epilepsy—which only cheapens what’s already there.
Released from prison with terminal cancer, Max tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter and the grandson he’s never known. When his daughter’s abusive, drug-addicted ex-husband reappears, Max’s violent past comes back to haunt them all.
"Though the film doesn’t offer satisfying emotional catharsis, it makes up for it with its thematic exploration of forgiveness, redemption and mortality."
— Alexandria Slater
Down on her luck and struggling to raise her epileptic son, a woman allows her estranged father to stay at home with them while on parole from his latest stint in prison.
Any scene where Beckinsale and Cox get to share time together and really just act without any distractions is time well spent. The dynamic between Maxine and Max is ultimately kept too simple in the long run, but in individual scenes you can tell that the two actors are doing their darnedest to create a complicated dynamic between their characters. Maxine keeps her father at arm's length out of spite for being abandoned, but also out of shame for not being much better as a parent (at least from her perspective). Meanwhile, Max wants to do whatever he can to help given his fatal diagnosis, but knows he has no right to intrude upon his daughter's life, having accepted all the pain he's caused. It's a good relationship that deserves a better movie.
Producers throwing darts at the wall: "Okay guys, so we're doing prison, cancer, drug addicts, aaand epilepsy."
Emil Hofileña is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. He also writes as a theater critic, with work published in Rogue and Out of Print, among others. He’s probably crying over a movie or an episode as we speak.
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