Review: ‘If I Go Will They Miss Me’ is an achingly beautiful portrait of fatherhood
2026 / Dir. Walter Thompson-Hernández / 2026 Sundance Film Festival
Rating: 4.5/5
Watch if you like: Moonlight, Nickel Boys, and the dreams of youth colliding with the harsh realities of a life misspent.
Every so often, you start a film and from the first scene you know it’s going to be a masterpiece. A lyrical, achingly beautiful portrait of a young boy’s hero worship and a father who can’t accept his son’s love in the face of his flawed past, If I Go Will They Miss Me feels like a magical realist take on the childhood section of Moonlight. Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell) regards his often-imprisoned father, whom he barely knows, as a mythical figure, literally depicted as Poseidon on screen in multiple sequences. That terrifies Big Ant (a spectacular J. Alphonse Nicholson), who was once an inquisitive, thoughtful child like his son, but through youthful misadventure didn’t become the man he dreamed he’d be, and despite being out of prison once again can’t accept that he could live up to the way his son sees him.
Gorgeously photographed by Michael Cambio Fernandez, each frame of If I Go is stunning, and director Walter Thompson-Hernández elevates an often-told story to mythic proportions through painterly framing, stunning montage sequences, and quirky bits of surrealism. Simply breathtaking and one of the best discoveries of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.