Movie Review

Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale fail to make a family connection in Prisoner's Daughter

Telling stories about people with bad parents has a long history in movies and other art forms. Hell, it could be argued that having a miserable childhood is responsible for half the people (or more) deciding to go into show business in the first place, and putting that on screen is a version of therapy for them.

A bad dad who may or may not deserve redemption is at the center of Prisoner’s Daughter. Max (Brian Cox), in prison for an unspecified crime, is told he will be allowed a compassionate release after his diagnosis with terminal cancer. Trouble is, he is required to live with his daughter, Maxine (Kate Beckinsale), who has never forgiven him for the hell he put her and her now-deceased mother through while she was growing up.

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Brian Cox in Prisoner's Daughter.

Max coming to live with her is just one of a host of issues for Maxine, who’s a single mom to an epileptic son, Ezra (Christopher Convery), works two jobs to try to make ends meet, and has a deadbeat addict ex-husband. She clearly has multiple reasons to be angry at the world, but the return of Max brings unexpected changes to her and Ezra’s lives, making it difficult to hate Max just out of habit.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written by Mark Bacci, the film is heavy with talented people but light on compelling storytelling. There is zero doubt where the film is headed in the end, so its success is dependent on how the journey is depicted. Unfortunately, nothing that is put on screen is original or interesting, with the filmmakers seemingly content to just check off boxes as they go.

A big part of the problem is the narrative shortcuts the film takes. On multiple occasions, the filmmakers choose to tell and not show why a certain character is the way they are, leaving the audience with almost no way to connect to their story. The inclusion of a side character, Hank (Ernie Hudson), an old friend of Max’s who runs a boxing gym, seems promising, but also doesn’t deliver when it needs to.

Overall, though, the film just never makes you care about its central characters. Call it chemistry, call it what you will, but none of the main three ever establish anything close to the strong feelings they’re supposed to have for each other, leaving their stories without any heft behind them. To pull off an arc of redemption, there needs to be a whole lot more attention to detail than is shown in this movie.

Beckinsale, whose biggest recent role was in the terrible Fool’s Paradise, gives a one-note performance for much of the film, turning a character for whom the audience should have tremendous sympathy into someone you don’t care about at all. Cox is fine if unremarkable as Max, nowhere close to the nuanced role he inhabited in HBO’s Succession. Convery does well as the third lead, but is let down by the lack of connection with any of the other characters.

Prisoner’s Daughter tells a similar story that has been told many times before, but the filmmakers can never find a way to make it rise above that familiarity. People leading difficult lives can be captivating to watch, but only if the people involved figure out a way to make those characters convincing and relatable.

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Prisoner's Daughter opens in theaters on June 30.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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