‘Diary’: Daughter’s Look at Dying Father

One of the most complex periods many adults will go through at some point in their lives is the struggle to know their parents as people--who are or were they, and why did they make the life choices that had such a profound effect on their children’s lives?

“Before You Go: A Daughter’s Diary,” the first in a new HBO documentary series called “Family Video Diaries”--chronicles of real life by real people--is one such struggle.

Searching to make a connection that would break through her father’s emotional elusiveness, young filmmaker Nicole Betancourt recorded the final year of his life, as he was dying of AIDS.

Jeff Betancourt is willing to be filmed, but at first not willing to talk about his double life: His marriage to Nicole’s mother broke up when his wife realized he was gay. Later, as illness strips away his defenses and he and his daughter grow closer, he opens up somewhat to her searching but often tentative questions.

Other supportive family members are interviewed, and the unpretentious film is interwoven with home film footage from Nicole’s parents’ youth and marriage and from Nicole’s own seemingly picture-perfect childhood.

There are also clips from two TV shows on which her parents appeared, first as a model progressive couple of the ‘70s on a program about working husbands and wives, and then on a “Today” segment in the ‘80s where they were profiled as a model progressive divorced couple, benignly sharing custody of their daughter.

Yet what makes the most impact is Nicole and her family’s own protective remove, revealing only hints of pain and unresolved anger, despite their caring. In the end, part of Nicole’s sense of loss seems to be bewilderment that her effort to know her father left questions still unanswered.

* “Before You Go: A Daughter’s Diary” airs at 7 tonight on HBO.