Daughters (2024) taps into the notions of family and long-term change under the oppression of the American prison industrial complex.
Directors: Angela Patton & Natalie Rae
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 102′
Global Release Date: August 14, 2024
Where to watch: Netflix
The premise of Netflix’s Daughters, the documentary from first-time directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae, could easily feel emotionally manipulative for viewers with or without children. There’s something undeniably heartwarming to see incarcerated men preparing for a father-daughter dance inside their prison, but the film manages to transcend this simple premise to talk about headier topics in contemporary America.
Make no mistake, there are plenty of tear-jerking moments throughout the film’s runtime, but Patton and Rae’s singular focus isn’t just to nakedly elicit emotions.
What’s looming in the background of Daughters at all times is the unusual cruelty of the American prison industrial complex, and how it finds new, unique ways to prevent inmates from contacting those they love. Within the state prison in Washington, DC, where much of the film takes place, it manifests in the form of restricted visitations. Even when the inmates are allowed in-person visits, they take place via a television screen, where the other side is in a completely different section of the prison. This is to say nothing of the lengths of their prison sentences or the unlikely chances of parole – which Patton and Rae choose not to focus on. So when the Daddy Daughter Dance arrives, the select few prisoners are ecstatic just to be able to see and embrace their kids for the first time in years.
But the Dance is more than just a dance. There’s a 10-week long program leading up to it where the men meet in a group setting to talk about the struggles of fatherhood and how they can dig themselves out of the hole they’re currently in, in order to do better for their children. These scenes provide for great insights as the men get truly vulnerable in a way they never felt like they could before. These men are more than simple, hardened criminals; they’re products of generational trauma and environments which aren’t conducive to effective parenting.
Patton and Rae spend equal time in and out of the prison with a handful of girls and their fathers, and sometimes, their mothers. We get to intimately know the girls, whose ages range from 5 to 15, but retain a fondness for their estranged fathers, even when, in some cases, they can’t remember what he looks like. It’s nothing new for a prison film – whether fiction or non-fiction – to focus on the ripple effect that incarceration has on immediate families and immediate communities, and this is one of Daughters’ few stumbling blocks, as it doesn’t necessarily bring something brand new to the conversation.
Still, it’s a vital conversation, and one that is personified with radical humanity in Patton and Rae’s subjects. When the central Daddy Daughter Dance arrives, it’s as much of an extended emotional gut-punch as you’d expect. Curiously though, the scene arrives around the halfway mark, rather than serving as the climax of the film. This is one of Patton and Rae’s smarter decisions, as it refocuses the inmates’ strive to be better and make it out of prison to be a force in their daughters’ lives. The all-too-brief time spent physically being present with their kids provides a jolt of motivation, a way of realizing that, despite the oppression of the American system, change is possible.
Daughters will be available to stream globally on Netflix from August 14, 2024.
