2023 short<\/a> of the same name, which won the top prize at the American Cinematheque\u2019s Proof of Concept Film Festival.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tTake Me Home\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n
\tFresh and unpredictable.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Cast: Anna Sargent, Victor Slezak, Ali Ahn, Marceline Hugot, Shane Harper
Director-screenwriter: Liz Sargent
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 31 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tLiz Sargent takes narrative chances in Take Me Home that seemingly intend to pull the viewer out of the story, at least momentarily, but the interactions among the strong cast strike a winning balance. There isn\u2019t a predictable or hackneyed exchange in the drama, which understands not just the immense challenges its characters face but also the throwaway humor that can be essential to a family\u2019s connective tissue.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn their Orlando home, Anna and her retired parents (Victor Slezak and Marceline Hugot) live a life of quiet routine, juggling bills and insurance red tape. Against the day-to-day backdrop of lawn upkeep, Florida humidity and power outages, there are drives to the port to watch cruise ships pass by, their pristine hulks enormous and surreal. Back at the family\u2019s kitchen table, they pray together before meals. Anna\u2019s mother bathes her, and she and her husband endure their daughter\u2019s occasional tantrums. But as needy and demanding as Anna can be, she\u2019s also a perceptive caregiver in her own right, attentive to her mother\u2019s physical ailments and her father\u2019s growing cognitive struggles.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnna\u2019s sister, Emily (Ali Ahn, of The Diplomat), who\u2019s also a Korean adoptee, lives in New York, and the movie\u2019s first, long-distance glances of her in video chats with Anna set us up for a hissable, self-absorbed career woman. But when she arrives in Orlando, after Joan has died, it\u2019s clear that she\u2019s a reasonably self-absorbed and understandably stressed-out working person who\u2019s doing everything she can to help her family. Emily\u2019s compassion and concern go beyond the writing of checks. Ahn is extraordinary, breathing vibrancy as well as deeply conflicted emotions into an arty Brooklynite who uses words like \u201cenable\u201d and \u201canxiety\u201d and notes that \u201cmy therapist says I need to breathe more.\u201d She\u2019s no clich\u00e9, but a complex character facing a tough predicament, feeling the weight of responsibility and the pain of being limited in what she can do.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Emily\u2019s first time home in a couple of years, her father\u2019s increasing lapses become as obvious to her as they are to Anna. Broaching the hard truth, the need to figure out a more structured caregiving plan for her father and sister, Emily meets resistance from them both. But after she leaves, Anna, in a moment of weighty stillness, feels the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Slezak is superb at conveying Bob\u2019s growing frustration: all lost in the supermarket, placing paper towels in the fridge, staring uncomprehending at a wall calendar. There\u2019s a sweet camaraderie between him and Anna as they negotiate what to watch on TV, and undeniable comedy, edged with a sense of peril, when they join forces to navigate the kitchen and the matter of cooking. The ways they look out for each other make his increasing bursts of anger all the more distressing.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s made to be complicated,\u201d a care facility manager (April Matthis) tells Bob regarding the convoluted gaps and restrictions of Medicare and Medicaid. Through the harsh realities facing a middle-class family, Sargent\u2019s screenplay is a damning indictment of the American health care system. But it\u2019s no screed, and at its center is a charismatic character whose declarations of independence are small but stupendous, whether she\u2019s shooting hoops with her neighbor (Shane Harper) or swiping a package of yearned-for ice pops from the market.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe helmer and production designer Andrew White infuse the movie, especially in the early going, with a nuclear family\u2019s emotional claustrophobia and also its comforting familiarity. Sargent uses occasional ellipses to propel the story, notably in the disorienting break between the film\u2019s bleakest moment and what you might call a dreamscape, a utopian vision, or a proposal. Changing gears from the understated domestic palette, cinematographer Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi captures a place where everything seems to glow as if lit from within. When we first see Anna in Take Me Home, she\u2019s wearing earbuds and singing along softly to a song no one else can hear. Where the story takes her is a place of deep engagement with a kind and caring world. The music is shared, and dancing is encouraged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Anna, the 30-something woman at the center of Take Me Home, the smallest change in her routine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,28908,337,79523,109539,79083,178984,178985],"class_list":["post-435946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-movies","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-2026","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-sundance-film-festival-2026","tag-sundance-film-festival-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}