Take Me Home Review: Understated & Emotive

Liz Sargent’s Take Me Home is a moving snapshot of a small family in Florida who struggles to meet one another’s unique caregiving needs.

But despite this Sargent-specificity, Take Me Home is also a tremendously universal film that most will be able to relate to on some level. It shines a light on the problems facing the health and social care systems in the USA (issues that many countries share) as well as the importance of family and general human connection as a means to a happy life.

Anna lives with her elderly parents in the suburbs of Florida. The trio offer caregiving to each other in different ways; the first time we meet Anna and her mother, Joan (Marceline Hugot, 30 Rock), is with the latter bathing her 38-year-old child. Such tasks are difficult for Anna. In contrast, she offers support to her physically ailing mother as well as her father, Bob (Victor Slezak, The Bridges of Madison County), who is showing signs of mental deterioration in the form of dementia. It is a unique setup that Sargent sketches with warmth and character. There are artful, lived-in shots aplenty in Take Me Home, invoking some of cinema’s greats such as Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives).

Because of the film’s realistic groundings, it has a special improvisational docufiction tone to it. Whilst interesting, this does diminish some of the energy and dramatic impetus of scenes and causes them to drift into aimlessness. It’s an issue that affects the whole of Take Me Home; it isn’t always clear where the plot is taking the characters and the viewer. A tragic event also feels like it comes too early in the film, although it leads to one of the story’s main relationship studies, that of Anna and eldest sister Emily.

Her return comes after around two years away in New York. It brings both happiness and sadness from all sides. The family dynamic between Bob, Emily, and Anna is intriguing, as the trio clearly love one another deeply, but also have certain resentments threatening to boil over. In particular, the relationship between Emily and Anna is most compelling; the two actors share a terrific heartwarming chemistry that real-life sister Liz would undoubtedly be proud of. In contrast, Sargent struggles to find the same believability or warmth in Bob and Anna’s father-daughter relationship. More widely, Take Me Home is an interesting, if underdeveloped, look at how families drift over the years, as parents age and children move into independent adulthood.

Ian Holden’s imaginative editing works wonderfully to portray the everyday anxieties that Anna experiences, even when faced with what many of us would deem simple tasks. Furthermore, Sargent’s deep understanding of her sister is clear, taking time to capture Anna’s emotions in a patient, observational manner. It is moving to see Anna express her feelings, but on the whole, Take Me Home is too slight to truly reach a higher emotional level. The loose naturalism enhances the film’s everyday warmth, but causes some feelings to wither away. Despite these shortcomings, Take Me Home is an eye-opening and important film about a family unit needing but not getting help from government systems put in place to provide such aid.

Take Me Home premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 17-22, 2026. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews and our list of 20 films to watch at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival!