Across the many films, shorts and documentaries that screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, a recurring theme emerged with striking consistency: lonely love. Projects spanning genres and formats returned again and again to ideas of lost connection, emotional distance and solitude, both within and outside relationships — platonic, familial, romantic and even with oneself. Walter Thompson-Hernández’s If I Go Will They Miss Me, which premiered at Sundance on Jan. 24, soars within this emotional current.
Set in a working-class South Los Angeles neighborhood, the film follows a father and son — Big Ant (J. Alphonse Nicholson) and Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell) — as they navigate a fractured relationship following Big Ant’s return home after a long period of incarceration. For most of Lil Ant’s life, their bond has existed at a distance, a reality made painfully clear as Big Ant quickly dismisses his son’s curiosity and imaginative spirit. Lil Ant, in turn, struggles to comprehend — and move past — his father’s disdain.
As the emotional weight of Big Ant’s return reverberates through the household, tensions extend beyond the central relationship to include Lozita (Danielle Brooks), Trae (Mark Lane III), and Acacia (Zaria Kelley). Their shared pain completes an intimate portrait of a family in repair, even as the film remains anchored in the strained bond between father and son. Thompson-Hernández seamlessly blends social realism with touches of magical realism and echoes of Greek mythology to capture the family’s aching desire for closeness and their collective search for connection.
If I Go Will They Miss Me, an expansion of Thompson-Hernández’s award-winning 2022 short of the same name, excels on so many levels that it’s difficult to know where to begin. The emotional journey of the Anthonys — both within and beyond their familial bonds — unfolds at an intimate, measured pace that favors family folklore over spectacle. Overall, the film’s tone is a warming blend of the documentary sensibilities of 2014’s Boyhood and the emotional depth of 2016’s Moonlight.
Water motifs run deeply through the film’s structure: At times, the audience feels as though floating, head up toward the sky — at others, submerged, drowning in the weight of the characters’ realities. Whether soaring above or underneath the current, If I Go Will They Miss Me remains grounded, anchored by Nicholson’s and Bell’s nuanced performances, which allow the emotional truths of the story to emerge gently and without force. Danielle Brooks also deserves her flowers for her emotional, intuitive performance. It conveys quiet power while leaving space for her co-stars to shine.
Like Lil Ant, If I Go Will They Miss Me finds refuge in its internal, imaginative world, which is presented through a series of quiet vignettes that reveal its central characters’ longing and search for connection. Lil Ant’s universe is restless; his prepubescent need for guidance and understanding is palpable and beautifully rendered. He is sensitive, curious and all the things his environment hesitates to allow him to be — the biggest enforcer of that fear being Big Ant.
The film excels at exploring Big Ant’s own fears — as a father and as a product of his environment — and how his recent displacement has complicated his role within the family. This tension is best represented as the film approaches its conclusion, in a scene where Big Ant, having begun to warm to his son, enters Lil Ant’s bedroom. Like its inhabitant, the room overflows with wonder: drawings of clouds and mythical beings, cardboard wings dressed in blue and trailing streamers. Big Ant is momentarily receptive to his son’s dreamy inner world — until his gaze falls on a stark drawing of a prison hidden among the fantastical imagery. Reality snaps back, and the emotional rush culminates in him slapping Lil Ant. Its abruptness, unembellished by theatrics, makes the moment particularly gut-wrenching.
Though If I Go Will They Miss Me centers on one family, it is equally about the community that surrounds them coming together to help them heal. Myles Bullock’s JJ and Bre-Z’s Jenn are refreshing supporting players, often reminding Big Ant and Lozita that it takes a village. That message is echoed in the closing credits, as portraits of families flicker across the screen like a cherished photo album. Soft-spoken yet deeply resonant, If I Go Will They Miss Me is thoughtful and restrained, allowing for moments to breathe. Its visual language reads like a love letter from Thompson-Hernández to Black families everywhere — those striving not only to survive, but to live fully, and most importantly, to love.
The post ‘If I Go Will They Miss Me’ With J. Alphonse Nicholson And Danielle Brooks Is A Tender Tracing Of Searches For Black Manhood, Love appeared first on Blavity.
