PRISONER'S DAUGHTER
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Brian Cox, Christopher Convery, Ernie Hudson, and Tyson Ritter
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
NICK
Did I enjoy Prisoner's Daughter? Yes. Am I likely to remember it a year from now? Probably not. All in all, that really sums things up regarding this film. This is a movie that does nothing great and few things poorly, yet it kept my attention through its runtime. The strongest aspect of the film is the grandfather/grandson dynamic between Brian Cox and Christopher Convery, while the weakest is the painfully generic soundtrack that sounds like an amateur YouTube tribute video. Everything else is…fine. It may not light your world on fire, but you can do worse than Prisoner’s Daughter.
QUENTIN
The phrase “no need to reinvent the wheel” exists for a reason, and Prisoner’s Daughter is a very well-made wheel. It’s content to tell a fairly standard story about an estranged father and daughter (and grandchild), but it does so on the back of excellent performances from Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale. The film even manages to subvert some of the more modest expectations, which came as a pleasant surprise. It’s not mind-blowing by any means, but it’s the kind of efficiently made, unpretentious grownup fare that we don’t see very often anymore.
This film was reviewed by Nick and Quentin as part of Bitesize Breakdown's coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.