Natalie Rae’s Daughters finds its strength in letting children speak without tidying their feelings for them. We recommend her debut feature, though she and co-director Angela Patton need to ask harder questions of its fatherhood programme.
Fi1m perspective
The girls in Daughters (2024) talk about the fathers they miss, and Rae and Angela Patton do not hurry to make their feelings reassuring. Four children are preparing for a father-daughter dance in prison, but the months before it give the directors their richest material. We were moved by the girls’ openness, particularly when their affection made the pain of separation clearer. Rae and Patton allow that discomfort to remain, without explaining to the adults watching what they ought to learn.
Rae directed music videos and commercials before moving into feature documentary. Her earlier credits include Serena Ryder: Stompa (2012) and Leon Bridges: Bad Bad News (2018), both made under the name Natalie Rae Robinson. A background in dance informs her attention to movement, while music remains part of her documentary style. Daughters, her first feature, took roughly eight years to develop and film; the children’s willingness to speak makes that time feel well spent.
Cinematographer Michael ‘Cambio’ Fernandez’s use of natural light suits a film attentive to faces rather than the workings of an institution. Editors Troy Josiah Lewis and Adelina Bichis give the girls’ reflections room, and that space is crucial to the film’s effect. Music-led passages, with a score by Kelsey Lu, give it a more lyrical feel. We are most persuaded, though, when the girls are simply given time to talk.
The difficulty is that Rae and Patton’s care for the participants is not matched by equivalent scrutiny of the programme. The film gives the girls room to express hopes about a meeting whose limits they cannot set. It is right to listen to them, but that does not remove the need to question the arrangements adults have made. We would like Rae’s next documentary to press harder there, without losing this patience with the people in front of her. Start with Daughters for the children, and keep that reservation in mind.
Biography
Natalie Rae is a Canadian director of documentaries, music videos and commercials. Born in Vancouver, she is based in New York and has directed work for artists including Leon Bridges, Serena Ryder and Tegan and Sara, as well as campaigns for Nike, Adidas and Lululemon. She has also made public service announcements for organisations such as United Nations Women.
Her debut feature documentary, Daughters (2024), co-directed with Angela Patton, follows incarcerated fathers and their daughters preparing for a dance programme. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award, and was later acquired by Netflix. The film received a Peabody Award and earned Rae the Critics' Choice Award for Best New Documentary Filmmaker, with nominations including BAFTA and Directors Guild of America awards.
