Daughters (2024, Angela Patton & Natalie Rae)

I’d read a little about this movie beforehand, and didn’t bring any kleenex, so stood outside the Missouri Theater staring up at its walls thinking “I am the brick, I am the mortar, I will not cry at the movie,” and this pretty much worked. Slyly highlights the broken horrors of the prison system through personal stories from inside and outside, the two sides meeting at the father-daughter dance, an invention of activist and co-director Patton. The dads are told to use the dance as a promise to change and be present for their families, and soon some are getting out but others are being shut away for decades (the movie never says why any of them are inside). A particular five year-old is so open, talking lovingly and often of her feather, then in postscript she’s eight, acting completely distant on a phone call with him. Older jaded kids have trouble with the concept, but give in when it’s dance time. A lovely movie that will go far unless it’s immediately dumped onto streaming and lost in the content ocean. At least twenty producers, and a production company that did Faya Dayi and The Territory. Opener Good Looks was a noisy four-piece rock group.