Comment on Sundance: 'Take Me to the River' Is a Tantalizing Southern Gothic

Sundance NEXT entry "Take Me to the River" is director Matt Sobel's fascinating first feature. At turns befuddling and obfuscating, this psychosexually charged tale centered on gay teenager Ryder, played by excellent newbie Logan Miller, gets its hooks in you very quickly, managing to sustain that tension for an increasingly bizarre, what-the-fuck-inducing 90 minutes. Ryder is out to his free-thinking, California parents—but not to the backwater Nebraskan extended family he's about to confront at a rural family reunion that you could almost call a comedy of manners and errors, if it weren't spiked with so much murky, underlying menace.