Take Me Home is one of the most crucial, singular films to come out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Inspired by writer-director Liz Sargent’s film and based on her 2023 short film of the same name, the story centers on a cognitively disabled woman named Anna (played by Sargent’s real-life sister, also named Anna), who cares for her aging parents in Florida. When tragedy strikes during a particularly brutal heatwave, the fragile routine the family has created is shattered, throwing their future into uncertainty.
Though the film is undoubtedly a drama, there is a surprising amount of comedy, too. Some of that is due to Sargent’s excellent script, which won her the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and some is due to the sister dynamic between Anna and Emily (Ali Ahn) at its core. Ahn, who is known for projects like Agatha All Along and The Diplomat, effortlessly toggles between tones alongside Anna, infusing the film with hilarious beats of humor and grounded moments of raw, relatable heartbreak alike.
Fanversation’s Taylor Gates got the chance to speak to Sargent and Ahn about the film. During the conversation, the two discussed the unique (and highly rewarding) process of collaborating with Anna, finding slivers of levity, and the most rewarding audience reactions. Sargent also teases her next project, and Ahn looks back on the impact of Agatha All Along two years later.
TAYLOR GATES: I’m so excited to chat with you both again after talking to you at Sundance. So much has happened with the project since then. Liz, when I talked to you in January, you said that Ali’s “such a gymnast in the way that she works. She’s so present, knows her craft so well, and can shift and change around whatever Anna was doing in the moment.” Is there a moment that stands out for you both where you found something really special and spontaneous?
ALI AHN: I don’t know if Liz has a different memory than I do, but I feel like, towards the end of filming, Anna had just grown so much and was stepping into being a lead. Her improvisational skills were growing, and she was actually adding to the scenes in a way that not only followed the logic of the scene but was actually giving me so much. We had this fight, and in the fight, she’s supposed to tell me that she’s mad at me. I take her favorite shirt, and she’s really upset about it. In one of the takes — I think it’s the take that we used in the film — she actually exits the frame as she was supposed to, and it was supposed to end right there, but then she started yelling at me from off camera. It was so painful, what she said, but it was completely in line with what was happening, and it gave me so much. I was like, “Wow, she’s my freaking scene partner.” It was amazing for me to just watch Anna grow like that.
That moment is so sad. I think she said, “You’re the worst sister ever.”
AHN: That wasn’t scripted! Anna came up with that on her own, and it hit me. I remember we celebrated so hard after that take because I was so proud of her. It was really thrilling to watch her contribute to the scenes in that way.
One of the other things is we were trying to catch a scene where I was supposed to be cutting Anna’s toenails, which she in real life really doesn’t like. I was trying all different kinds of ways to get a reaction out of her, but she knew that I wasn’t really going to touch her toenails. We were playing with the line of, if I actually touched them, how upset she would be. And we just couldn’t. I tried to tickle her, thinking maybe, if I did that, that would physically look like she was retreating. We’d have these 15-minute takes, and we would just improvise, and I would try to get fragments of what was in the script, and then also stay open to what Anna might bring. There was a constant toggling back and forth between being completely open to whatever inspiration Anna had and also kind of, in my head, keeping a catalog of the emotional beats that we need to hit so that the next scenes make sense in the story.
I love that we get these little details of what Anna and Emily’s relationship was like as children. We get the fact that Anna was the only one who could make her laugh and sort of bring her out of her shell. I’m curious if you did any background work pinpointing what some of those moments or memories would have been.
AHN: You know, I actually really tried to stay so present to create my chemistry with Anna in the moment. I think one of the unique things about working in this way is that Anna is so present. There’s no bullshitting with Anna. If you try to come in with an agenda and she doesn’t respond to that, you’re dead in the water. It doesn’t matter what idea you have about the scene, because the magic is the interaction. I didn’t invest too much in creating a backstory that Anna couldn’t share with me and just focused on the playfulness that we have together in this present moment, and I tried to use that as the foundation of the chemistry you see on screen.
That’s such an interesting way to work, because you have to be so in the moment.
AHN: So in the moment, because Anna will expose you as a fake if you’re not.
I really love the scene when Anna shoplifts the popsicles. I feel like that gives us a peek into what the relationship was like as kids. It’s sort of silly, and rebellious, and childish — all the fun things. Can both of you talk about filming that scene, in particular? Because it’s one of my favorites in the whole movie.
LIZ SARGENT: I love your [looks at Ali] relationship with Anna. I feel like she responds to you in her own way because she loves you so much, and she’s just in awe of working with you. But the popsicle scene is so great because most of this film is ripped from real life or are moments that I’ve experienced emotionally so deeply. The popsicle scene was just a moment of fun and whimsy. But also, Anna does whatever she wants, and being able to capture that, write that, and show her taking charge of her whole life in the small and the big ways and sort of telling her sister off, saying she’s gonna do what she wants to do, is so awesome. I feel like she loves that energy and that playfulness, so it was sort of easy to pull out of her.
AHN: In that scene, she was so funny. When she takes charge, she’s so matter-of-fact about it, and it’s really funny. I think, in that scene, the doors of the car were locked, and I couldn’t get them open fast enough, and she was giving me shit as we were trying to. It’s those natural things. I feel like the more open you are to allowing Anna to shine and take the scene where it needs to go, it makes everyone around her better, too, because her idiosyncrasies provoke a reaction in her scene partners.
SARGENT: I feel like through this process, through all of the collaboration and offering Anna the space to own the scene — and also having her on this festival run — we found that she is a comedian. She’s hilarious. Like Ali’s saying, her deadpan humor — she’s really listening to the room and plays with the timing. I think in the process we found that because we gave her the space, and she knew she could be playful. That scene was super fun, and I love watching Anna watch that scene in the audience because she is rooting for herself.
As she should!
SARGENT: Yeah, obviously!
I will say, on a bit of a heavier theme, I really resonated with Emily’s guilt about moving away and building her own life while feeling like she’s leaving people behind who need her. You played that so beautifully. I know this is kind of a broad question, but I’m curious how you approach that internal conflict of knowing that you’re doing what’s right for you but also having shame about those choices.
AHN: I think it’s such a universal conflict that we all carry. I think everybody has some feeling of responsibility to their family at some moments, and no matter how much you love somebody, your individual desire is not always agreeing with what is expected of you. I feel like that actually was quite easy to tap into.
We shot the movie in Liz’s parents’ actual home. The scene where I’m on a phone call — that’s the guest room where Liz stays when she goes home. The physical space was so real, and the artifacts of Liz’s family’s life were right there — Anna’s bedroom is right there. Knowing that Liz was living in New York, and I live in New York, and seeing how different the environment of Florida is and how jarring that is, it wasn’t hard to tap into that. Obviously, it was such a gift on many levels that Liz’s parents actually left their house open for us to take over during the shoot, but it fed all of us so much.
SARGENT: I think it’s the ethical dilemma that we’re all living with, right? The shame, the guilt, and the discomfort — we all live with that because we can’t do enough for our families. And a big part of that is because this country is not set up to support us, and the healthcare system is so opaque and impossible, so we’re all sitting there wondering if we should go back to our parents, take care of them, and give up our own dreams. This is a universal experience. It’s not just specific to this family in the film.
I feel like the depiction of aging parents hit really deeply as well, especially Emily’s relationship with her father. It’s so bittersweet. Liz, can you talk about crafting that, and Ali, can you talk about building that dynamic with Victor? Because it felt very natural.
SARGENT: The father character was so interesting to me. My father is such a quiet, introverted man, and I think that generation’s idea of caregiving and their connection to aging is so different from our generation. There’s also this adoptee experience of the deep, deep love and commitment, but also the disconnect. Writing this film was an exploration of these ideas, and I was trying to figure out what those scenes meant to me without making a heavy statement.
AHN: All the relationships that Liz depicts in this film — and what I think is so beautiful about them — is that they are so multifaceted. As she was saying, there is such love there, but the way I looked at that relationship between Emily and her father is through the disconnect of a generation where the love is so uncomplicated and so simple. It’s like, “Well, we had love to give, so that’s why we adopted you.” And it kind of ignores all these other questions that Emily has: “What does it mean to adopt transracially? And transnationally?” And they’re relevant and not relevant to that relationship, right? I think that being able to play all of those things — playing Emily’s concern for her father, her love for her father, but also the reality that they may never see eye-to-eye, and she may never get the answers that she wants — again, I think that’s universal. It’s a generational conflict that exists in every family.
The ending is so interesting and unexpected. Liz, I know you said it was difficult to land on and that you wanted to leave it sort of open-ended and not give the audience any easy answers. Ali, I’m curious, what were your initial thoughts when you read the ending?
AHN: I was like, “What is this going to look like? Oh my gosh.” It was so, as you said, unexpected, and I loved it, because you’re waiting for something really heavy to happen. Even on the page, it was so open-ended. I was so curious to see what the visual vocabulary was gonna be.
I know a lot of people have now seen the movie since it premiered at Sundance. What has the reaction to that ending and then the film in general been?
SARGENT: We just did some preview screenings. One was at CUNY Staten Island, which is actually a college that’s built on top of the old Willowbrook site, which is an institution known for some of the most horrific neglect of disabled people. To screen it there and have a panel and a conversation with people who are changemakers in this community was incredible. We were at ReelAbilities the other day showing it to their audience in an early screening, and what we found is that the ending is what’s necessary right now. In the world, we don’t need to see an ending where people are struggling, and we accept that that is their life and the situation that this world offers right now. We need to see what’s possible. And a huge part of this film is about leaving it on that note that feels bittersweet. I hope it sparks their imagination about what exists, what doesn’t exist, and what we can do to make that world where Anna — and we all —can thrive.
Ali, what’s been the most memorable or heartfelt reaction for you?
AHN: I’ve seen it at two festivals. I was actually just talking about this this morning. What I remember being so profound was hearing the audience collectively move with Anna. Feeling them so worried for her in that moment when she’s reaching under the car, or the joy when she’s playing basketball — feeling somatically that everyone is just so with her was really profound for me, and it gave me a lot of hope. I think it’s very easy, with how dark things are, to forget the capacity people have for empathy. But when you’re sitting in that theater, you can feel how much everyone is rooting for her and right there with her. I found that really compelling, and it gave me a lot of hope.
Liz, when I talked to you in January, you teased an adoptee reunion thriller film. I want to know if there are any updates on this because I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
SARGENT: Oh, good. Ali and I are trying to develop something, so it’s in the early phases, but I really want to return to my process of things really being generative, working with actors, and building a script. My background is in modern dance and experimental theater, so [I’ve considered] maybe having it feel hybrid and using actual adoptees in Korea. The search for your biological parents feels like a thriller, and I want to capture that. The way that I write is such a diary entry, so even that process will be a lot of learning, but that’s the dream of the next piece. I’m just figuring out how to build it.
I would love to see you guys continue to collaborate because I think there’s something so special here. I have to ask, Ali, because it was the two-year anniversary of Agatha All Along recently.
AHN: Oh, was it?!
It was! How has that show impacted your life in the past two years?
AHN: You know what, I just had someone on the subway, like, freak out. That’s the first show where I was like, “Oh my gosh,” and had the feeling that a performance can have an impact. So many people felt really seen by that show. I think there’s a similar sort of priority of community, connection, and taking everyone with you — people wanting to let the collective grow versus having some kind of individual, selfish motivation. I feel like I’m so lucky to have been part of stories that celebrate that. Just the love for that show…I mean, this woman said that she still sings the song with her cousins. That is amazing.
Take Me Home is playing in select theaters throughout October. Tickets are available here.
— Taylor Gates