Director Matt Sobel's Take Me to the River is a dark, intense drama about a gay California teen's disturbing weekend at a homophobic family reunion in Nebraska. As Ryder (Logan Miller) and his parents drive to the farm where Mom grew up, Ryder's parents urge him not to mention his homosexuality to the relatives. "Are you not going to tell them you're Jewish?" Ryder asks his Dad. But he agrees to keep quiet. Or does he?
At the family picnic, Ryder parades in front of his conservative aunts, uncles, cousins and grandmother in his tightest shorts. His openly hostile cousins laugh at him. Only nine-year-old Molly (Ursula Parker) accepts Ryder. But when she emerges from the barn screaming and bloody, Ryder is suspected of abuse.
The film then takes on a much darker tone as Ryder's bitterly resentful, overtly "macho" Uncle Keith (Josh Hamilton) seeks to "make amends." A bone-chilling sequence follows in which the "friendly" Keith invites Ryder to lunch, interrogates him about his life, then teaches him how to handle a gun. Beneath the fake smile and icy stare of Uncle Keith lies a homophobic monster. Hamilton is wonderful in this difficult role.
Director Sobel spoke to the B.A.R. about what he was trying to convey.
"This is a coming-of-age story for our 17-year-old protagonist," Sobel explained. "But unlike other films that touch upon those same pivotal moments of maturation, it doesn't end with him becoming galvanized or more sure of himself. He arrives in Nebraska with a black-and-white understanding of the situation and his family, quite sure of himself and his moral high ground, but leaves back to California profoundly shaken."
Sobel said he hoped the story would start conversations among audiences. "By leaving negative space in the narrative, I wanted to invite viewers' fears, assumptions and suspicions into the story," he said. "The audience co-creates the film with us so that by the time the credits roll, one might turn to the friend they came to the theater with and discover that each saw slightly different stories. The film begs the question: Did I see what I wanted to see?"
Sobel points out that this mirrors what happens onscreen as the story unfolds. "Just like the family members at the reunion, who didn't see what happened at the barn, but based on their assumptions, are asked to make a snap judgment," he said. "The film asks the audience to do the same."
Take Me to the River opens on Fri., April 1, at Landmark's Opera Plaza in SF and Shattuck in Berkeley.