Prisoner’s Daughter | Review
Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale in Prisoner's Daughter
Not Without My Drama: Hokum Is Where the Heart Is in Latest Misfire from Hardwicke
By Nicholas Bell | Published on June 30, 2023
Director Catherine Hardwicke may be experiencing one of the most prolific chapters of her career, but her tenth feature, the dysfunctional familial drama Prisoner’s Daughter, is so rife with cliched tropes one could easily believe it's the product of AI. Instead, it’s the screenwriting debut of Mark Bacci, and though it technically premiered before Hardwicke’s other 2023 theatrical release, the slapstick mob comedy misfire Mafia Mamma, this proves to be one of her most egregiously derivative films to date. As soon as its main elements are introduced, a cancer riddled felon granted compassionate release to live out his days with his estranged Las Vegas working class daughter who single handedly cares for an epileptic son whose father is a raging drug addict, you can easily predict how all these elements will coalesce into a lazily drawn catharsis.
Diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, Max (Brian Cox), serving a life sentence for his significant criminal past in Las Vegas, is told by an abnormally friendly warden he can enjoy the remaining weeks of his life with his daughter Maxine (Kate Beckinsale) under house arrest, if she agrees. The only thing is, he hasn’t spoken to his child in more than a decade. However, Maxine, who is raising her teen son Ezra (Christopher Convery) all by herself while working two (or three) jobs at a time thanks to her ex Tyler’s (Tyson Ritter) debilitating addiction issues, could really use the extra help (and the rent she charges Max). An ex-boxer, Max’s acumen comes in handy for Ezra, who is being bullied at school. Initially, Maxine introduces Max to Ezra as her uncle, and neglects to explain he is dying. But as the bond between Max and Ezra grows, Maxine begins to see her father in a new light.
The most criminal element of Prisoner’s Daughter is how it seems a waste of time for the likes of Brian Cox, whose characterization ends up being the only liferaft which one could cling to until his denouement, which is so foreseeable it feels like he’s wearing a concrete block around his neck. It’s been a long time since Kate Beckinsale has had the pleasure of working with a decent script (one wishes Whit Stillman would reconnect with her after 2016’s Love and Friendship, a Jane Austen adaptation which is her career best), and the hollowed out Maxine is about as DOA as her recent turns in Fool’s Paradise, Jolt, and The Only Living Boy in New York. Though she’s technically believable as a down-and-out beauty who survives on the outskirts of the plentiful opportunities in the Las Vegas service industry, it would seem all Maxine really needs is one good, restful nap to snap back to one hundred. Everyone outside of their orbit, however, deserves to end up on the cutting room floor. The overtly convenient epileptic fits of Ezra are Christopher Convery’s only real asset, seeing as he’s bullied at school by vague assailants quite easily dispatched once he learns boxing skills with the assistance of Max’s old cohort (a wasted Ernie Hudson, who looks as phenomenal as ever but is deserving of better material). Worst of all is a Razzie deserving Tyson Ritter (of The All-American Rejects), stomping around like he’s channeling the heroin-chic glare of Bittersweet Symphony’s Richard Ashcroft. A dramatic climax is instigated by a poorly fabricated birthday party showdown, as Ezra unwisely invites his deadbeat dad to the pizza shindig. "Do you think you could stop using for your son's birthday?," Maxine pleads with Tyler, visiting him in the flophouse he resides within (referred to as an 'artists' co-op" here). The result is an eruption of vigorously clashing cliches.
Hardwicke seems to be revealing an ever increasing interest in certain narrative elements with Prisoner’s Daughter, combining twin disease drama elements (which she previously visited in the cornball Miss You Already, 2015) with zanily unexpected familial confrontations (as in Mafia Mamma), though there seems to also be a pattern of diminishing returns. It’s a pity considering Hardwicke’s initial indie offerings, including the somewhat potent 2003 debut Thirteen and her 2005 follow-up Lords of Dogtown. Ever since her hard left into the glossy quagmire of ultimate storytelling stupidity in 2008’s Twilight, Hardwicke seems to have been pursuing the burnished bastions of a mainstream taste she’s simply a bit too peculiar for in the first place.
★☆☆☆☆