If you’re of a certain age in California, you don’t need to look up how old Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell) is to know his age in “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” studying Greek myths as every sixth grader does in the state. It isn’t only the paper mache that he’s obliged to dip his fingers in to build a Pegasus for a class project that feels tactile in Walter Thompson-Hernández’s enthralling expansion of his 2022 short of the same name, but it’s the type of detail that keeps a toe in reality as it starts to soar, elegantly conveying the rocky relationship between the 12-year-old and his father Big Ant (J. Alphonse Nicholson in an indelible turn) after the latter comes back home to Watts after a prison stretch.
Thompson-Hernández makes no secret of his influences with loving nods to Charles Burnett and Spike Lee — there’s a double dolly shot to look forward to — but an original voice breaks through as Lil Ant considers his father every bit of a god as Poseidon, yet is privy to his fallibility when Big Ant can’t handle the responsibilities of being around much as a father when contending with how much time he feels he has to make up for to himself, arrested only a few years older than Lil Ant is now and strangely sharing a similar level of maturity when his growth was stunted, though physically he’s all grown up. The cycle isn’t expected to repeat itself when Lil Ant was raised with great care by his mother Lozita (a sensational Danielle Brooks) and spends his time by himself, having an active imagination that fills up plenty of sketchbooks with drawings. Despite the fact it was hanging out with the wrong crowd that led Big Ant to prison, having a terrible lapse in judgment when he and his friends harassed a janitor to the point of throwing rocks at him, it can be concerning to his father that Lil Ant appears to be so introverted and alone, though it’s difficult to spend any time with him himself when he’s afraid of not having the right words to say.
Though there are plenty of warm conversations throughout as Thompson-Hernández spends plenty of time in the Nickerson Gardens Housing Project to capture the flavor of the neighborhood (complete with residents getting generous screen time), dialogue is at a premium within the family in the film when no one exactly knows how to engage with one another following Big Ant’s release, which makes both the director’s facility with striking imagery and a strong cast who can express so much in silence ultimately all that more powerful. Whereas the filmmaker’s fragmentary style with its occasional flights of fancy announced a distinctive vision yet could seem a little too diffused in his feature debut “Kites” where he followed around someone looking to make amends in Rio de Janeiro, the approach works wonders here as both Lil Ant and Big Ant try to make sense of the world around them and a viewer picks up the language at the same speed they do, with dream logic seamlessly articulating what the characters can’t bring themselves to say or that quantifies time passed in a way no one could be reasonably expected to notice.
Thompson-Hernández’s own bone-deep knowledge of the surroundings allow for such gently surreal yet eerily authentic touches such as Big Ant’s work around the stables for the Compton Cowboys or the ever-present sound of planes that fly above the family’s apartment when Watts is just off to the side of LAX that organically add a touch of magic that illustrate the grace with which people carry on their everyday lives when it might be difficult to manage otherwise and the feel the director for the community and the rhythms of daily life make it a most inviting place rather than one to run away from, even as the film suggests how much pain can reside inside as one generation after another contends with a seemingly eternal absence in their families. “If I Go Will They Miss Me” doesn’t gloss over what’s lost and perhaps never recovered, but it does offer a great appreciation for seeing what’s right in front of you, offering a breathtakingly expansive view of how much love is out there if you only know where to look.
“If I Go, Will They Miss Me” does not yet have U.S. distribution.