'The Prisoner's Daughter': Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox in Katherine Hardwick's toil drama

A man serving a sentence in a state prison has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His doctors told him he had four months to live. He could choose to end his house arrest by calling his estranged daughter and asking if he could live with her. The brief interaction sparked years of buried emotions and a long and awkward journey of reconciliation.

So begins Katherine Hardwicke’s hard-working drama The Prisoner’s Daughter , oscillating between competing wishes, ultimately unfulfilled. Movie stars Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox as daughters The relationship with his father was damaged by years of rejection and abandonment.

Prisoner’s Daughter

Bottom line No viewing required.

Place: Toronto International Film Festival (Party Speech)

Cast: Kate Bay Kinsale, Brian Cox, Ernie Hudson, Christopher Comfrey, Tyson Ritter
director: Katherine Hardwicke
98Writer:

Max (Cox) has been imprisoned several times in his life, the most recent being continuous year. Maxine (Beckinsale) takes care of her mother during adolescence, who drank to death after her father was in prison. “The Prisoner’s Daughter” has all the conditions for a deep study of twisted family dynamics, but it abandons this angle to satisfy the less satisfying Action thriller takes a detour. With so many clichés, the 98 minute movie feels like a marathon.

The first half is promising and constitutes a compassionate portrayal of a single mom struggling to make ends meet. Maxine shuttles between two jobs to support herself and her precocious son Ezra (Christopher Comfrey). The increased cost of living — her son’s epilepsy medication bill is $98 — plus her ex-husband Tyson Ritter) spent all his money on drugs instead of raising kids, making most days a hard-won battle. Despite her cautious character, Maxine doesn’t succumb to total pessimism: her life may not be what she imagined, but she’s proud of her efforts.

That’s why Max (Cox) is calling, her father, and she’s very annoyed. After years of little contact and no support, Maxine was blown away by his offer to make up. She initially scoffed at his request, but changed her mind after losing her day job as a waitress and making another frustrating trip to the pharmacy. Maxine accepts her father’s offer under certain conditions: He must pay the rent and stay away from her.

Where Max got the money to pay his daughter is not entirely clear, but the rules of the arrangement are not the point. The arrival of Max has greatly enlivened the daily life of Maxine and her son. Strict boundaries disappear, and the trio form a lovely routine – eating dinner together at the small dining table, dusting off old photo albums, and sharing stories from the past. Max puts Ezra under his protection, coaching the young boy in self-defense and helping him better understand his mother’s protective parenting style. As for Max and his daughter, the two slowly and deliberately mend their relationship. Their conversations marked their progress—superficial, perfunctory chats quickly turned into massive digs into the past.

The prisoner’s daughter provided some valuable information, including that it’s never too late to make amends, start over, or apologize. But Butch’s script doesn’t seem interested in fleshing out the characters to achieve the desired emotional resonance. Max, Maxine, and Ezra feel more like placeholders serving narrative twists than people wrestling with personal flaws and trying to heal old wounds. After a while, Max and Ezra start to look monotonous, especially when you realize that the latter’s curiosity is just a clumsy way of moving from one plot point to another. Maxine’s character goes in a confusing direction: how does a woman who starts out as an impeccable single mother end up like a troubled teenage girl caught between her father and her ex-husband?

By the time Act 3 came out, The Prisoner’s Daughter started to look and sound like a different Movies – From a human-turned-drama to a somewhat high-stakes action movie. Maxine’s ex-husband, Tyler, stalks her trying to meet his son, and he becomes an even more sinister issue when he realizes Ezra’s perception of him has changed. Max’s mentoring of Ezra threatens the failed musician, who sabotages Ezra’s birthday party and creates a horrific scene. Here, the film flirts with a thriller tone: our senses are heightened by realizing that Taylor might try to do something dangerous or stupid. , into that genre. The director’s unassuming style is a boon here: the backup and narrative turn together to create a suspenseful third act. Still, it’s disappointing that by the end of The Prisoner’s Daughter , we’ve gone through so much about the characters and yet know so little about them.

98 Full credits

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations) Production Companies: Oakhurst Entertainment, Capstone Studios, Sam Okun Productions, Pasaca Entertainment

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Brian Cox, Ernest Nee Hudson, Christopher Comfrey, Tyson Ritter

Director: Katherine Hardwicke

Screenwriter: Mark Budge
Producers: Sam Okun, Marina Grasic, David Haring
170 Executive Producers: Guy Moshe, Christian Mercuri, Ruzanna Kegeyan, Chris Rasmussen, Crystine Zhang, Robert Morgan, Jai Khanna, Mark Bacci, Jason Duan, Wen-Chia Chang , Justin Oberman, Catherine Hardwicke98 Photographer: Noah Greenberg

Product Designer: Pele Kudren
38 Costume designer: Marie France
170 Edit: Glen Scantlebury
170 Composer: Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum 12Casting Director: Ferne Cassel

Sales: UTA
1 hour38 minute 38 THR Newsletter

Sign up for THR News daily

direct to your inbox daily SUBSCRIBE Sign up