Seventeen-year-old Ryder becomes the unsuspecting target of class and social tensions within his large, southern family in disquietingly assured first feature from American director Matt Sobel.
With his mother Cindy (Deadwood’s Robin Weigart) and Don (The West Wing’s Richard Schiff) in tow, the confident, young Ryder (the excellent Logan Miller) returns from his liberal Californian lifestyle to his famiy’s roots in a world of pick-up trucks, guns, and horseback riding. Wishing to get through the reunion unscathed, Cindy urges Ryder to not stand out in front of his family, particularly by being open with his homosexuality. But when an expected and unexplained accident occurs with one of his younger cousins, Ryder has much bigger problems. Decades long prejudices begin to bubble to the surface as the divide in family grows stronger. What follows is a tense, meticulously crafted reveal of a family’s shrouded history under the gothic, pastoral backdrop of rural Nebraska. Filled with palpable, stomach churning tension, the haunting layers of writer-director Matt Sobel’s debut Take Me to the River continue to unfold long past the final shot.
DIRECTOR: Matt Sobel CAST: Logan Miller, Josh Hamilton, Richard Schiff, Robin Weigert, Ursula Parker LANGUAGE: English COUNTRY: USA YEAR: 2015 LENGTH: 84 min
