Daughters
Daughters is streaming on Netflix at the time of writing. Rated PG-13. Common Sense says 13+
A look inside the program that connects incarcerated fathers with their daughters, culminating in a Father - Daughter dance inside a prison.
STORY: A
The story smartly decides to go wide instead of deep.
We don’t need to spend a long time with these families to feel the tragic impact that incarceration wreaks upon a child. Spending time with several families allows us to grasp the issue more fully. It creates a much more complete, complex, and emotionally affecting picture.
PEOPLE: A+
A poignant reminder that every human is a human being.
They say when you get right down to it, everyone wants the same thing. That is never more clear than when everything has been taken from a person. Loss - for both fathers and daughters - has stripped them down to their rawest essence, a place where the only thing they want is each other. Just as you or I would.
FILM NERD STUFF: A
The final cut devastates.
The film’s second last shot shows an 8 year old girl who painfully realizes she will grow up without her father. There’s sadness and anger in her eyes. But the most heart wrenching thing on her face is the resignation that has siphoned the entirety of her spirit.
It then cuts to a quick shot of her, three years younger. This is the age that the film has spent the most time with - the version of her the audience is most familiar with. Her beaming smile cuts like a scalpel, reminding us of all the joy and promise that’s bled out.
ONE BIG LESSON: A+
We cannot lose sight of every person’s humanity.
The crowning achievement of this film is how eloquently it illustrates the savagery of separating children from their fathers.
Horrible crimes call for serious consequences. But we must have enough imagination to allow two things to exist at once: severe punishments that deter criminality and measures that reduce the toll it takes on innocent children.
We must remember that a prison’s walls work two ways. They don’t just cage people within them. They keep society from having to look at those locked inside of them. When we lose sight of the prisoner’s humanity (and their children’s), we lose our own humanity as well.
FINAL COMMENTS:
This film reaches out and grabs your collar. It shakes you, it slaps you in the face, it screams, “For the love of God, these are human beings.” Yes they’ve made awful mistakes that require appropriate consequences. But there is a mountain - a continent - of difference between giving people a shred of grace and withholding it altogether.
We watch an amazing group of people being the change they wish to see in the world. The movie is an extraordinary record of what it means to be human, and it’s a screaming call for all of us to live our lives as decent human beings.