Sam Jaeger’s ‘Take Me Home’
It’s difficult to say which film—short or feature—that I saw on Wednesday afternoon at The Nickelodeon, garnered more laughs from me, but while those chuckles are a minor badge of honor for the feature, Take Me Home, I’m not sure the short film, Alone Together, was aiming to tickle the funny bone.
I’m not feeling mean-spirited enough to spend too many words taking apart Ben Kadie’s short film, Alone Together. Perhaps I’ve grown soft in my old age, which might explain why I mostly excused the flaws of Sam Jaeger’s Take Me Home, despite my analytical instincts. The guy-meets-girl dramedy follows a man who operates as an illegal taxi driver in New York City who picks up an unhappy married woman, and together they go west to California, after she hires him to drive her cross-country.
This road movie goes exactly where you expect it to, and the comedy lands better than the drama, but one cannot complain too heartily about having to spend time with these characters. Sam Jaeger (of NBC’s underrated dramedy series Parenthood) and real-life wife Amber give nice performances; their chemistry seems to translate organically to the screen, even while the meet-cute circumstances of their characters feel contrived, as does the ending. But they say it’s about the journey—and this one is perfectly harmless, even if the destination leaves something to be desired.
For the complete Santa Cruz Film Festival schedule, visit santacruzfilmfestival.org.
