On the heels of the show’s success, Disney decided to adapt the program into a feature-length film, which once again starred Cyrus and her dad Billy Ray, who portrayed her concerned, corny father. “Hannah Montana: The Movie” was a run-of-the-mill star vehicle, although they have a cute rapport. Still, it’s clear that music is this family’s specialty — not acting.
4. Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight: “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001)
When Angelina Jolie was a girl, she appeared briefly in her dad’s movie “Lookin’ to Get Out.” But as Jolie became an A-lister, she returned the favor, with Jon Voight playing her father in the first Lara Croft film. At the start of “Tomb Raider,” Lara believes he is dead, but after seeing him in a dream, she goes on an adventure, eventually granted one last chance to speak to him.
The film was a standard early-21st-century blockbuster, but it set the stage for a tabloid spectacle when, a year later, Voight spoke with the press, declaring, “I’ve been trying to reach my daughter and get her help, and I have failed and I’m sorry.” Jolie sent out her own statement, which said in part, “I don’t want to make public the reasons for my bad relationship with my father. After all these years, I have determined that it is not healthy for me to be around my father.”
What was the cause of their friction? Voight suspected it was because he cheated on Jolie’s mother when she was a baby, while others assumed it was because of their very different political views. (He’s a major Trump supporter.) But in recent years, the two have tried to mend fences, with Jolie saying in 2017, “We don’t really talk politics well. We talk art very well.”
3. Clara McGregor and Ewan McGregor: “Bleeding Love” (2023)
Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara have stressed that “Bleeding Love” isn’t autobiographical, but Ewan’s sorrow and guilt as this unnamed father definitely suggests an acknowledgment of the pain he caused Clara when he left her mother for another woman. Unfortunately, this tender drama is mostly interesting because of who’s playing the main characters — the story’s emotional high points aren’t especially searing, and the road-trip narrative turns out to be fairly predictable. Still, there’s something undeniably raw about the performances, suggesting that the film was a form of therapy for Clara and her dad. “Bleeding Love” may not add up to much, but one can’t help but hope it did the two of them some good.