"Prisoner's Daughter" worthwhile for Cox and Beckinsale

Prisoner’s Daughter (2023)

Not that director Catherine Hardwicke ever went anywhere, but “Prisoner’s Daughter” is her pleasing return to indie filmmaking. A father-daughter redemption drama suiting Hardwicke’s tough, intimate sensibilities, the film has Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale, so we’re already off to a good start. Sure, name-brand talent can have its limits, but Cox and Beckinsale’s performances really do elevate the soapy material here. It’s affecting, if unremarkable, and it’s not “Mafia Mamma.”

Single mom Maxine (Beckinsale) is doing the best she can. She’s behind on the mortgage of her childhood home in Las Vegas and can barely afford the anti-seizure medication for her 12-year-old son Ezra (Christopher Convery), who has epilepsy. She works two jobs, relying on tips at her waitress job and working nights cleaning up backstage where she used to be a showgirl. When her deadbeat ex-husband Tyler (Tyson Ritter), a drug-addicted musician living in an “artist co-op,” causes her to lose her one job, the struggle becomes a cycle. Ezra is also getting picked on at school but gets detention for getting beaten up. Finally, Maxine receives a call from her estranged father Max (Brian Cox), who gets a compassionate release from 12 years in prison because he’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only has four or five months to live. Max wants to live out the remainder of his days on house arrest with his daughter and his grandson. Maxine is, of course, less welcoming, but she could charge him as a tenant since she needs the money. They’re blood but they haven’t been family in a while. 

“Prisoner’s Daughter” is pretty much an acting showcase, but a very solid one. Brian Cox can’t help but just show up and command the screen. As Max, he’s playing a man of violence but not quite that same man anymore. Cox conveys pangs of guilt, convincing the viewer he does actually want to support Maxine and Ezra in any way he can for the time he has left. Kate Beckinsale hasn’t been this good in a dramatic role in a while, and she really brings every ounce of raw authenticity to Maxine who’s consistently trying to stay afloat. Beckinsale’s monologue to Max could have just felt like a big, transparent Oscar Clip™, but the tears feel earned and we can really feel the history between them. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com.

Grade: B -

Vertical is releasing “Prisoner’s Daughter” (100 min.) in theaters on June 30, 2023.