You don’t stop being a father in jail. For the dads in this movie, there are Daughters out there, wishing, hoping, for their chance to see their dad in person, not just in a weird, blurry zoom call. That physical barrier in Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s moving documentary creates a nearly insurmountable emotional one, which the fathers and daughters both have to deal with, for years and even decades to come, wishing, hoping, for little chances to see those barriers come tumbling down.
Well, for the male inmates in a Washington DC jail, a shooting star has granted them their wish. They will be part of a pilot Daddy Daughter dance program, to give the fathers a chance, for one night, to have that wonderful physical connection with their flesh and blood. The doc looks at the 10 week therapy lead up to the dance, including what happens in the aftermath of it.
Natalie Rae and Angela Patton focus on 4 girls for the doc, at ages ranging from 5 to 15. This is the doc’s stroke of genius, as you quickly understand how time affects the girls better than any amount of time with the fathers could. The minute you see 5 year old Aubrey, your heart just melts: she’s brimming with enthusiasm and joy, excited in 10 weeks she’ll get to see her daddy again (he just started his prison sentence) and talk about her certificates she gets at school. 10 minutes later, we travel 5 years into the future via 10 year old Santana’s introduction. Your heart melts for her too, just in a much sadder way: she’s brimming over with anger, hardening her exterior to hide all that pain and anguish her dad has given her because of his lengthy sentence. By the time we get to 11/12 year old Ja’Ana and 15 year old Raziah, we see more possibilities for Aubrey: essentially forgetting what her dad looks like, or straight up internalizing all that pain into really dark, possibly suicidal thoughts. And even though the dads might not be there everyday, they can feel their kid’s pain still, and you hear it coming out of all of them in the therapy sessions, where they confront all their latent feelings so they don’t bury them and lash out later. Hearing them talk about their kids “not knowing what they look like” is downright heartbreaking, but essential to make these fathers realize true consequences of their mistakes, pushing them to be better people. This time spectrum and therapy shows how things we all take for granted: hugs, hand holding, hell, just being in the same room with the people we love, are all much more important that we give them credit for growing up.
This doc builds wonderfully to that Daddy Daughter dance, a messy, but mostly wonderful night for everyone who showed up (again, your heart breaks for the dads whose kids couldn’t come). Tears all around, but especially when the night capper Beyonce’s “Before I Let Go” comes on. That’s when the pumpkin breaks and we see why the therapy was necessary for fathers and daughters. Just when you think the doc is coming to an end, Rae and Patton give us secret weapon #2: time passage. We jump 3 years into the future since this day. All 4 girls: Aubrey, Santana, Ja’Ana and Raziah are in different points in their lives than they were at the dance. Some arcs bring happy tears to your eyes, with dad’s finally out of prison and staying around, slowly changing their entire family life for the better. While others, you see the highs of that night become distant memories, and some hardening of the heart into a hammer that breaks the audience’s hearts into a million pieces. The time jump shows the equal and opposite reactions of the dads and girls: dads use that night to be a source of purpose to build their lives around, while the (especially young) girls lack the perspective to do that, turning the dance into a distant memory and reminder of an empty promise from someone who’s supposed to love them.
When Daughters’s credits started rolling, I had a lot swirling around in my head and my heart. I definitely went on an emotional roller coaster, experiencing some of the highest highs and lowest lows of 2024. But only the greatest of the great movies can really extract that kind of emotional journey for their audience, a testament to the power of this story. I hope this Daddy Daughter dance becomes an annual event across the country, if not for the inmate fathers, than for those adorable girls, hoping for a chance to get that connection they so desperately need but are being deprived of.