2017’s Miles Between Us is the story of a father and a daughter on a road trip.

Luke Duaer (Dariush Moslemi) is a hotshot Hollywood producer, the type who drives around Los Angeles in a nice car and who puts together the type of deals that lead to Hollywood blockbusters.  Luke is really intent on getting film star Chace Creed (Josten Rositas) to agree to being in his next movie but he can’t even get Chace’s people to return his calls.  Luke has a lot to deal with but that’s all going to have to be put on hold because his teenage daughter, Gabby (Anna Stranz) is about to start college on the other side of the country.

Luke and Gabby don’t have much of a relationship.  Since divorcing her mother, Luke has barely been in Gabby’s life.  In fact, Luke’s girlfriend is shocked to discover that Luke even has a daughter.  The road trip is a chance for some father-daughter bonding.  It starts out uneasily.  Luke doesn’t know how to talk to his daughter and finds it strange that she’s enrolled at a small Christian college in North Carolina.  When she asks him to stop at a church so she can worship on Sunday, Luke sits outside in the car while she does so.  Gabby has a lot of understandable resentment towards Luke.  He hasn’t been a great father.  That’s not something that’s easy to forgive, as much as one might try and want to do so.

There’s a lot that I could relate to in this film.  My Dad and I had our difficulties, especially after he divorced my mom.  For years, we barely talked.  He didn’t know how to communicate with me and I was so angry that I wasn’t going to open up and give him any help.  And yet, though I may not have always realized it, I never stopped loving my father.  No matter how many fights we had or how many words were exchanged in anger, I never stopped thinking that, someday, we would work it all out.  I’m happy to say that we did.  My Dad passed away last year.  He was in hospice care and in a coma during the final few days of his life but I believe he could still hear me when I spoke to him and I pray he heard me when I said that I was proud to be his daughter.  That said, I will always regret the years that we didn’t speak.  That was wasted time that I will never get back.

As you can probably guess, Miles Between Us feels like a film that was specifically engineered to get an emotional response from me and it did.  Inevitably, Luke and Gabby end up on the set of Chace Creed’s latest film.  (Gabby’s a fan.)  Chace asks Gabby for a date and, to the surprise of no one watching, he turns out to be a spoiled jerk.  Luke fights for his daughter, as any good father should.  It’s a bit melodramatic but I still smiled.

Miles Between Us is a film that got to me.  Now, you can probably argue that it got to me because of my own circumstances but that’s true of most films and most people.  Miles Between Us made me think about my Dad and how thanksful I am that we finally forgave each other.