It was Father’s Day recently and Apple took the opportunity to release the documentary Dads on their Apple TV+ service. A documentary that, as the title makes clear, is about fatherhood. Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, this film features many fathers talking about their experiences with fatherhood. Besides well-known directors and actors, such as Judd Apatow, her own father Ron Howard, Neil Patrick Harris, Jimmy Fallon, Will Smith, Ken Jeong and Hasan Minhaj, there are also fathers from different countries and in different situations.
So we see how a father initially did not know how to raise his three young children, but by vlogging about it he became an increasingly better father. Another father says that as future parents you assume that your child is healthy. When that turned out not to be the case, it meant years of hospital visits, but it made his bond and dedication to his son all the more important. There is a couple who tell how they adopted four children and what challenges they had. But there are also trips to a father in Brazil and one in Japan.
The result is a good looking, safe documentary, which has a big feel good vibe and shows how fatherhood has slowly changed. And of course it is easy to criticize that, but sometimes you need these kinds of films. Titles that make you feel good and maybe give you a boost about how you act yourself or think about something. And Howard succeeds in doing that with this documentary.
[score7]