“Daughters” - Film Review
Through the entry point of father-daughter relationships, Daughters is about prison reform. The documentary premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and is now available to stream on Netflix. Daughters echoes the sentiments of a 2025 Oscar hopeful, Sing Sing. Both are sparse, melancholic, and gentle pieces of filmmaking whose goals go beyond merely being a movie. They’re essential pieces of art dedicated to prison reform in the United States. Each has artistic merits that deserve to be celebrated, but they never overshadow the greater cause of urging lasting change in the United States prison system.
netflix
Daughters informs the viewer that a program, The Date with Dad, was created twelve years ago as a means of connecting young girls with their incarcerated fathers. The program is part of Angela Patton’s (who co-directed the film with Natalie Rae) larger work with young, Black girls. Instead of calling them “at-risk,” she calls them “at-promise” and has dedicated much of her life to programs to uplift girls aged 6-14. Her involvement with the father-daughter dance started in her hometown of Richmond, VA. Daughters chronicles the lead-up to the first dance of its kind, which was held at a prison in Washington, D.C.. The film follows four daughters (Aubrey, Santana, Ja’Ana, and Raziah) and their fathers (Keith, Mark, Frank, and Alonzo) as they prepare for the big event.
Despite the fact that film is a strictly audio/visual medium, there’s a distinct tactile nature to Daughters. As much as the fathers and daughters talk about their desire to see each other, both groups also continuously bring up the lack of touch in their lives. Text appears on the screen at one point to inform viewers that, since 2014, many prisons have done away entirely with what they call “touch visits.” Instead, they offer video visits that cost money. This dance provides many men with their first chance at hugging their child. Humans need touch. Our love and affection flow through a physical connection. Daughters recognizes that and sees how much of a lifeline this moment is for both the dads and the daughters. The camera lingers on hands being held, shoulders being rubbed, and heads resting on shoulders. There’s so much warmth in each of these frames and in the way love is shared between two people.
netflix
The prison system is corrupt. There’s no way around it. Family members should not have to pay money for a video visit with a loved one. This isolates everyone involved and only leads to more heartache. What Daughters and Sing Sing prove is that meaningful, lasting change comes about when we treat all people with kindness and learn how to handle the extremes of our emotions. Everyone in the film is hurting, and the current prison system only adds to the hurt. As much as the young girls are excited to see their dads, the visit comes with the complicated feelings of being disappointed that their father’s own actions took them away from their home. A person can love someone and be disappointed in them in the same breath. That’s the contradictory essence of relationships.
“I’m gonna miss my dad,” one of the young girls says as the dance winds down. In the lead-up to the event, the fathers had to attend weekly classes about fatherhood, their present, and what they hope waits for them in the future. Daughters does not tell the audience what these men did that brought them to this jail, but it does look to what comes next for the fathers and the daughters and the power of programs like this one to reform the prison system.
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