TIFF 2022: Prisoner’s Daughter Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

We have now reached the tearjerker portion of the festival. Since the beginning of film, countless films have aimed for that moniker but not all of them are earned. In the end, it’s all about the story and the script. When that doesn’t work, they resort to emotional manipulation in order to illicit emotion from audiences. When it comes to Prisoner’s Daughter, it arguably finds itself somewhere in the middle and is sure to be divisive in that regard. The emotion of this family drama will either be earned or not. That being said, the film brings absolutely nothing new whatsoever to the table in terms of story and will come off on the generic and derivative side to some. Nowhere near a benchmark in the genre by any means, it ultimately does just enough to get by though that is likely to not be enough for some audiences considering the talent involved. Nevertheless, Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox deliver powerful performances at the heart of this tale.

Prisoner’s Daughter sees a down-on-her-luck single mother named Maxine (Beckinsale) have her life turned upside down once she is reunited with her ailing estranged criminal father Max (Cox) as she allows him to live with her and her son Ezra (Convery) and serve what his final months under house arrest. Desperate, she put her troubled relationship with her father aside for her son who suffered from epilepsy and from bullying at school. How the story plays out and how the characters evolve from there shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to anyone but watching that dynamic between Maxine, Max, and Ezra as they got through it still brought on some compelling moments that will either engage audiences or have them groan at what could be argued as some not-so-subtle manipulation. Where the film will live or die is the believability of that collection of moments.

In spite of its issues, Prisoner’s Daughter survives thanks to the performances of the aforementioned Beckinsale and Cox as well as Convery. The three and their decent chemistry make for a strong yet unrevolutionary family dynamic. While the father-daughter side of the film took a hit from its lack of depth, Max and Ezra were the highlight of the family subplots, for silly reasons.

At the end of the day, Prisoner’s Daughter won’t set the world on fire but is still a solid watch for those looking for a tearjerker.

 still courtesy of TIFF

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.