Dallas Film Now.

It’s hard to fathom that If I Go Will They Miss Me is a debut film. Yes, it’s expanded from writer-director Walther Thompson-Hernandez’s Sundance winning short film of the same name, but it’s so assured…. so lyrical…. and one of the most humanistic films I’ve seen in a long time. Everything is perfect even though the emotions are messy and the film doesn’t completely answer the rhetorical question asked by its young protagonist.

Filmed and dedicated to the people of Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts, a community located directly under the noisy flight path of LAX where flying, escaping, and looking up at winged wonders will be a huge trope, the film focuses on the tenuous relationship between Big Ant (J. Alphonse Nicholson) and his young son Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell). Newly released from prison, Big Ant’s relationship as father-figure is complicated by his expectation of masculinity and Lil Ant’s proclivity for art and drawing, which doesn’t sit well with him. In one of the more quietly devastating scenes that speaks volumes about the disconnect between the two, Big Ant mutters “boy, stop drawing me” to his son. It’s not said with threat or malice, but with the sense of diminished belief in anything outside the margins of what a man should be. Clearly, Lil Ant’s creativity is a threat that will serve as the basic conflict for the rest of this stunning film. And don’t even ask what happens to the rainbow-colored papier mache unicorn Lil Ant and the family builds later on.

Observing this strained relationship at the margins is mother Lozita (a tremendous Danielle Brooks). She’s protective and wants the relationship between absent-father and son to develop, but Big Ant’s decisions and actions towards the family continually cause rifts. Slipping back into the vagrant lifestyle that once got him in so much trouble, Brooks plays Lozita with heart and understated anger at the ways Big Ant fails everyone. As both supportive partner and loving mother, her performance may be the most poignant in the film as her attempts to keep her family together often fall on her shoulders.

Nothing in If I Go Will They Miss Me takes a direct path. Previous films about African American life in settings like this typically go in one direction. This film is more than that. There’s an aching wisdom to the way some scenes play out. Music and image detonate in a wondrous orchestra. People say tremendously graceful things one minute, then do something horrific the next. There’s poetic realism. There’s harsh reality. Basically life. Not only is If I Go Will They Miss Me a monumental piece of independent cinema, but the type of film I hope and pray will be discovered and go on to light up hearts and minds around the world. And for that unanswered rhetoric question asked by Lil Ant throughout the film, filmmaker Walter-Thompson provides enough narrative context to suggest small inroads to a lasting family dynamic have been magically accomplished.

If I Go Will They Miss Me opens in limited release in the Dallas and Fort Wprth area on Friday September 18th.