‘Daughters’: Sundance Review

Dirs: Natalie Rae, Angela Patton. US. 2024. 107mins

In 2019, inmates of a Washington DC jail are given the opportunity to attend a father-daughter dance held in the prison gym. After a ten-week ‘responsible fatherhood’ counselling programme, and much soul-searching on both sides of the bars, the men reconnect with their offspring for just a few hours. But while the contact may be short, this sensitive documentary shows that the affects can be far-reaching.

Daughters is honest about the fact that this programme is not a magic bullet

Co-directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, CEO of Black advocacy group Girls For A Change and founder of the ‘Date With Dad’ programme documented here, Daughters places its focus firmly on these girls who are left behind when men are incarcerated. With the ages of the daughters ranging from five to 15 years-old at the start of filming, their frankness and honesty gives the documentary an emotional authenticity that transcends some of the prison-doc trappings. Interest should follow its Sundance premiere, helped by an impressive roster of EPs including Kerry Washington and Joel Edgerton, with a streamer looking a likely destination.

A black-and-white opening montage, set to romantic strains, shows the girls and their fathers getting ready for the dance, all smiles as they wait anxiously for the moment they can be together again. The film then rewinds to document the weeks before the event, in which we will see that this reunion may not be plain sailing for all. For some of the girls, particularly the older ones, it will take more than a dance for their fathers to earn their trust. While the men attend regular counselling sessions in which they talk about their regrets and hopes for the future, the girls must go on living their daily lives without them.

Nevertheless, Patton — who provides explanatory voice over and appears regularly on screen — makes it clear that it is the girls who are the driving force behind this initiative. Patton has run Date With Dad events for over a decade in Richmond, Virginia, aiming to strengthen father-daughter bonds. When some girls were unable to attend because their fathers were in jail, Patton decided to take the dance behind bars. 

Aubrey, five years-old when filming starts, desperately misses her father, Keith, whose prison term will last at least seven more years. (Notably, the film never details the crimes these men have committed, although some are in for a long stretch; the emphasis is on their role as a father, rather than an inmate.) Wide-eyed, articulate and endearing, Aubrey has suffered from separation anxiety ever since her father was arrested in the middle of the night. The dance is a much-longed-for chance to be able to give him a hug.

That is important, because, as on-screen subtitles tell us, hundreds of US prisons have ceased to offer in-person visits since 2014. This lack of real contact, Patton asserts, results in the erosion of bonds — although, as older girls like 10 year-old Santana, 11 year-old Ja’ana and 15-year-old Raziah make clear, their fathers’ poor choices are soley responsible for their crumbling relationship. Neither of these girls find it easy to reconnect with their dads; Santana uses the dance to seek answers, while Ja’ana can barely look her father in the eye. 

Michael Fernandez’s intimate camera is careful to capture these difficult interactions alongside more joyful moments and, together with some sensitive editing from Troy Josiah Lewis and Adelina Bichis, underscores the psychological burden carried by these young women. Despite the sentimental score, which unnecessarily ramps up the emotion, Daughters is honest about the fact that this programme is not a magic bullet, just one important step on the road to change.

Returning in 2022, three years after the dance, we see that both Santana and Ja’Ana’s fathers have been released and are attempting to keep their promises to be better role models. Yet for Aubrey, now aged eight, that happy ending is still years away. As we watch her on a stilted, awkward phone call with her father, it is unclear whether, without any more chances for contact, their relationship can go the distance.