1 of 5 | Danielle Brookes and Bodhi Jordan Dell star in “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Michael Fernandez courtesy of Sundance Institute
PARK CITY, UTAH Feb. 1 (UPI) — If I Go Will They Miss Me, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, is a haunting, poignant film. Writer/director Walter Thompson-Hernandez blends surreal visions with grounded drama so both linger after the film ends.
Big Ant (J. Alphonse Nicholson) returns to Watts, Calif. from incarceration. He struggles to connect with his son, Little Ant (Bodhi Jordan Dell) , or perhaps it is Little Ant who struggles to connect with his father.
One can feel the lived experience of If I Go Will They Miss Me. Thompson-Hernandez depicts interpersonal events with specificity without writing overwrought dramatic scenes.
Visually, he crafts evocative images that reflect characters’ emotional states. Big Ant encounters a group of boys in the middle of the street just standing there with their arms outstretched.
Little Ant is studying mythology in school so he draws parallels between his parents and the gods. Big Ant is Poseidon in a toga with a trident.
He imagines his mother, Lozita (Danielle Brooks), as Medusa, not in a negative way. In this story, Medusa is the mother of Pegasus so the snakes in her hair are beautiful, not frightening.
Little Ant eventually confronts Big Ant. This does not force the father to express himself.
Rather, he lashes out so hard that even his friend JJ (Myles Bullock) thinks he’s gone too far. This is a humane but realistic depiction of the divide between expressive youths and repressed parents, especially men.
Big Ant thinks even Lozita cant possible understand what he’s feeling. Really, it’s just banal repression and he’s avoiding addressing it, as seen when he lashes out at Little Ant.
These depictions, combined with the visual flourish, make If I Go Will They Miss Me an impressive handling of familial struggles. With no easy answers but plenty of empathy, even for Big Ant, Thompson-Hernandez shares something deeply personal and moving.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
