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TAKE ME HOME

LIMINABILITY

By Liz SARGENT

Drama - Post-Production 2022

After their mother’s death, an intellectually disabled woman and her estranged sister must learn to communicate in order to care for each other.

- Year of production
- 2022
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- USA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Director(s)
- Liz SARGENT
- Writer(s)
- Liz SARGENT
- Producer(s)
- Liz SARGENT
- Synopsis
- Anna inefficiently plants a dead zinnia in the ground but her motor skills slow her down. She is a 33 year old Asian adoptee with an Intellectual/Developmental Disability, who lives with her white 80 year old mother in Midland Florida. The two are reliant on each other: they shower together and dress each other. It is poetic and ironic, yet a totally normal mother daughter team.
  
  When Mom slips and falls, Anna calls her older sister Molly in New York, also an Asian adoptee. Without the language to be believed, Anna is brushed aside. She Facetimes again and this time her inconsolable tears get Molly’s attention. She sees that Mom is unresponsive - having passed in her favorite armchair.
  
  This sudden change turns Anna’s quiet life upside down. Molly arrives and is immediately engulfed in a futile struggle for information, while Anna’s world is deconstructed.
  
  Anna’s obsessive collections are thrown in the trash during Molly’s mission to clear out the foreclosed home. Anna tries to voice what she wants to keep, but Molly is resentful of the mess their mother left behind. Anna offers up Mom’s old shoes as a way to remember her. This moment of kindness opens up a space for Anna and Molly to talk about time, family and death.
  
  Without Guardianship or HIPPA, Molly must plead with doctors to get the complicated instructions for Anna’s seizure meds. Anna finally reveals the instructions from her fanny pack, but she is brushed aside again by Molly who again assumes Anna is inept. It’s all too much, and the sisters break down from the tension. In this sadness, Anna sees the bigger picture - Molly is grieving just like she is. With straightforward effortless empathy, Anna offers words - a memory. Molly is surprised at how poetic and clear Anna is. Suddenly, Molly realizes that Anna is quoting a childhood song and the sisters break out into laughter! Joy becomes the most important way of caretaking.
  
  Learning more about death, Anna offers Mom’s old things to the neighbors, sharing the memory of her mother. She clears the boxes in the garage on her own, accepting the change. She understands her sister’s pain and makes her a little meal. The caregiving tables have turned.
  
  Molly packs the last box with important paperwork. Anna opens her fanny pack and puts the paperwork that Molly previously disregarded into the box. It is all the medical information Molly has been searching for! Molly is ashamed not to have listened to her sister and realizes that she hasn’t recognized Anna’s abilities. The uncertainty for the sisters’ future independence remains but they are now a team against all odds. Together, they watch the dinky fireworks from their yard as Anna seedheads the dead zinnia into the earth.