The loss of a loved one does many things to many people. Some turn quiet and introspective, some get angry and abusive, and some are broken by the experience and become self-destructive.

Daughter is the story of a man dealing with an immense personal loss and who happens to be one of these third types of people. Jim’s (John Cassini) life is in a spiral, a positive feedback loop of drinking and prostitutes and running away from his grief. He is estranged from his wife and friends and is barely present at his job, and all because he doesn’t have the courage or will to face his traumatic past.

That, my friends, is a hell of a setup for a movie. I wish the payoff were as good.

As the film opens, Jim is living in an upscale hotel. We don’t yet know what has happened that has shattered his life, but despite the abuse and anger he is heaping on himself, he is using escorts to find some semblance of a connection to another person. Enter Nikki, a woman he retains for the entire night, with who he ends up sharing less sex but perhaps more intimacy than he has in some time with.

From here, we follow him on the road toward confronting his aforementioned past. It doesn’t go quite as expected but, if I’m honest here, I feel like maybe it should have a little more.

I’m going to be frank about this: the movie didn’t quite work for me. There’s no one egregious thing, but a number of small choices keep dragging the film down. For example, the script has a number of genuinely good scenes in it, but overall it feels about one draft away from being good. Jim has a subplot with his mother that could be removed entirely and have little to no effect while lending the film some of its best scenes. Much of the film is well-acted, but more than a few scenes feel like they needed one more take. The plot relies just a bit too heavily on telling us what’s going on rather than showing us, in the moments that resolve the story.

John Cassini, an undeniably talented (Vancouver local!) actor is clearly giving 100% in his role as Jim. The whole movie is his show and he does admirably with it. There are times in this movie where you wonder “why hasn’t this guy ever broken big?”. Teagan Vincze also has some great moments and easy chemistry with Cassini, making Jim and Nikki’s night together feel natural and believable.

Also, veteran BC-based actor Gabrielle Rose plays Jim’s mother and shares my favourite scenes with Cassini in the film. I hope she gets some real love for her admittedly limited screen time.

Daughter is filled with bright spots. A great cast and some great scenes, and a great setup, (and some great cinematography at times, too) but it doesn’t work as a whole. That said, the bright spots are bright enough that whenever we get to see director Anthony Shim’s next work I’ll be excited to see it, but the danger of shooting a film with limited time and budget is that some of the edges will be rough, and Daughter has just a lot of rough edges.

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