Film Review: Take Me Home: A Fascinating and Unique Look at Living with a Disability [Sundance 2026]

Take Me Home Review

Take Me Home (2026) Film Review from the 49th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Liz Sargent and starring Anna Sargent, Ali Ahn, Victor Slezak, Marceline Hugot, Shane Harper, April Matthis, Nikkita Johnson, Eric Diaz, Sean Liang, Steve Way, Shannon DeVido, James Carr, Steve Heinz and Naida Nelson.

Liz Sargent’s powerful drama, Take Me Home, focuses on a woman who has a cognitive disability in Florida. She lives with her adoptive parents and tries to do things on her own, but doesn’t always succeed. Her name is Anna (Anna Sargent) and one thing she doesn’t seem to like to do is take showers. This film is a tight drama with plenty of difficult situations immersed in the highly relevant subject matter. Liz Sargent always keeps the movie feeling plausible and necessary and Anna Sargent’s performance is highly challenging and she succeeds many times over at creating a woman on the edge of happiness who must ultimately rely on others to live a normal life.

As the film opens, we meet the adopted parents, Joan (Marceline Hugot) and Bob (Victor Slezak). Joan holds the family together in a strange, yet effective, way and is clearly the most rational one in the family. Set in Florida, we soon lose Joan from the action and that leaves Bob to struggle to try to keep Anna afloat which is easier said than done, especially considering his own frailties. After tragedy, Anna’s sister, Emily (Ali Ahn), arrives for a bit to try to help matters for Anna.

This film is fascinating in the display of the bond between Anna and Emily. While Emily isn’t able to care for Anna due to her prior commitments, she loves her sister. Anna can only do so much on her own given her limitations. It would be nice to think Anna could survive without assistance, but she does things that don’t feel right such as running away from home when the going gets tough. Late in the film, a small electrical fire occurs and Anna doesn’t know what to do. Would assisted living be the answer or will she be able to overcome her obstacles and live an every day person’s life?

One particularly memorable scene has Emily and Anna going to a supermarket together. Anna wants ice pops, but Emily doesn’t have the money to pay for them. Anna must find her way past the cashier with the pops while Emily struggles to even pay for the groceries she needs for the household. It’s a rare scene in cinema these days to see people struggling with money like this and the movie is accurate and on-point when showing such difficulties faced by the central characters in this film.

Take Me Home is powerful to watch. Anna is a good person, but she has limitations that would prevent her from living the life of an every-day person, but her life is still valuable and she brings joy to those around her, including some guys she meets and engages in fun and games with. Emily and Anna form a particularly moving bond on-screen as the pair really enjoy each other’s company. They just can’t live together due to financial and other restrictions. It’s a delicate topic and director Liz Sargent masterfully interweaves the themes of frustration and positive thinking into the mix in a thought-provoking way.

Hugot and Slezak are effective as the adoptive parents of Anna. Joan and Bob are realistic characters. Joan is the glue that holds the family together and when she passes away, Bob isn’t much help to Anna on his own. Bob struggles with his own disabilities that make it hard for him to maintain raising Anna on his own. Even though she’s a grown woman, Anna needs to be paid attention to. Hugot’s screen time is brief, but memorable and Slezak captures his character’s inadequacies to perfection.

Ahn and Anna Sargent share some finely tuned scenes together that shed light on their connection as siblings even though their relationship is what it is – for better or worse. Anna Sargent makes the most of her performance and like movies such as The Peanut Butter Falcon, Take Me Home is able to show how people with disabilities can be high functioning, yet still need care in terms of receiving the help they need to live a normal life. What is normal anyway? In reality, it’s being able to support oneself financially and realistically.

Because Anna Sargent is so wonderful in this role, Take Me Home is a pleasure to watch even through its most difficult scenes. Liz Sargent has crafted that rare winner that grabs reality by the horns and shows the viewer how the world functions and how even the best of intentions can be eaten up by the realities of the world Americans live in. Take Me Home is a well-realized tale of the struggle to make the most of a life with limitations. By the film’s end, Anna has found her place and purpose in life. That’s more than many “normal” people can often do for themselves. This is a strong film.

Rating: 8.5/10

Leave your thoughts on this Take Me Home review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook‘s patrons.

Readers seeking more Sundance Film Festival news can visit our Sundance Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page. Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, Bluesky, and Threads.