Sundance 2026 Review: TAKE ME HOME, Deeply Personal Drama of Family in Peril

Mixing documentary tactics with fiction, Take Me Home experiments with the limits of what we accept as real. Expanded from a 2023 Sundance short, the film follows a Korean adoptee through a series of escalating crises.

Anna Sargent plays herself, a 38-year-old with cognitive disabilities living in a suburban Florida house with her mother Joan (Marceline Hugot) and father Bob (Victor Slezak). Anna can barely care for herself, suffering emotional outbursts if things don't go her way. Joan has severe health issues (and will pass away early on). Bob is grappling with dementia.

Anna's adopted sister Emily (Ali Ahn), who lives in Brooklyn, is drawn back into the family after Joan's death. She discovers unpaid bills, dirty dishes, a mountain of laundry, and Anna's refusal to do things like shower. Emily seeks help in assisted care facilities and medical clinics, only to be told that the state of Florida has cut funding for health care.

The thrust of Take Me Home is the need for better and more affordable care for a broad spectrum of challenged people. Bob could easily be the victim of internet scammers. Joan's health problems prevent her from basic responsibilities. And Anna clearly needs more guidance than her parents or sister can offer.

Director Liz Sargent uses a documentary approach that implies that events are unfolding in front of our eyes. Only when she cuts to different angles do you realize how carefully written her scenes are, how calculated the cinematography.

The events that afflict Anna — microwave fires, smoke detector alarms, a bathtub accident — feel manipulative as points in a narrative. Equally disconcerting is a plot twist that may as well announce that the whole thing was a dream.

Anna Sargent has a strong screen presence, and she's framed in a way that makes you want her to succeed, or at least escape peril. The other performers turn in first-rate work, although the script does not demand much from them.

Take Me Home makes you feel good about yourself — for recognizing danger, for accepting Anna, for choosing entertainment that's a bit outside mainstream. I wish that would make it a better movie.

The film screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. 

Photo credits main: Anna Sargent appears in Take Me Home by Liz Sargent, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi.

Photo credits second: Ali Ahn and Anna Sargent appear in Take Me Home by Liz Sargent, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Daniel LeClair.