Hold Onto Me

It’s funny how sometimes the person you want the most can be the furthest away. And when you’re young, navigating those feelings can be a frustrating and confusing experience. Myrsini Aristidou taps into those emotions in her familiar, but sturdily made feature debut Hold Onto Me. The drama explores the unique connection between fathers and daughters even when it’s stretched to the breaking point across distance and time.

11-year-old Iris is a latchkey kid. School’s out, the sun is shining, and she spends her days anywhere but home. Iris prefers the company of older people, and is either found hanging out with the elderly men on the street playing tavli, or with the teenage Danae, her best friend. Iris’ summer idyll takes a turn when Aris, her estranged father, returns to town for his own father’s funeral. Already gone when Iris’ older brother Fivo was a toddler, she’s never known him. Never talked with him. She doesn’t even have a picture of them together. With her mother away spending a few days with her new boyfriend, Iris has plenty of opportunity to get into trouble. And when she winds up in a scrape with local law enforcement, it’s Aris who has to come and straighten things out. But this hardly means he’s going to step in and become the fatherly role model she’s never had.

As soon as Iris is out of the police station, Aris goes his own way. Seeing his offspring again for this first time in a decade hasn’t stirred any feelings of sentiment or nostalgia. But with Danae occupied with a new boyfriend, Iris can’t help but be drawn to Aris, and soon finds herself tagging along on his misadventures. Eventually won over by Iris’ stubbornness, Aris allows her a glimpse into his world of running small scams, betting on horses, and hanging out in seedy bars. Aris does anything for a buck, and his father is barely cold in the ground, when he’s selling his belonging at a local market. But a darker cloud hangs over Aris that he tries to keep from Iris — he’s in debt to the kind of guys you don’t want to be in debt to.

Drifting along with the welcoming, unplanned air of summertime, Aristidou’s screenplay comprises of a loose string of episodic events. The result, however, is mixed. Tonally, the picture blends its naturalism with melodrama, overcooked by Alex Weston’s on-the-nose score, that too often brings the viewer to picture emotional beats rather than letting them find it themselves. And when the story, that we’ve often seen before — a no-goodnik father connects with his daughter — heads in the expected direction, this tendency to flagpost the film’s key events works to its detriment.

The heart of Hold Onto Me belongs to Christos Passalis and Maria Petrova, whose chemistry matches the film’s golden palette from cinematographer Lasse Ulvedal Tolboll. In her debut role, the young Petrova as Iris easily holds the center of a picture that requires her in almost every frame. And her portrayal of Iris — both tough and vulnerable — acts as perfect foil to Aris. Passalis, a seasoned actor and filmmaker, hides his character’s difficulties beneath a mask of easygoing charm.

As Hold Onto Me reaches its third act, the picture slips off into a story about bad guys and drug-running that starts to overshadow Iris and Aris. Nevertheless, Passalis and Petrova are always presenting nothing short of the truth of their characters, even if the film around it sometimes struggles to be as articulate.

Director, screenplay: Myrsini Aristidou
Cast: Christos Passalis, Maria Petrova
Producers: Myrsini Aristidou, Monica Nicolaidou
Cinematography: Lasse Ulvedal Tolboll
Production design: Dimitra Sourlantzi
Editing: Jenna Mangulad, Myrsini Aristidou
Music: Alex Weston
Sound: Kostas Varympopiotis
Production companies: One Six One Films (Cyprus)
World Sales: Cercamon
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)
In Greek
102 minutes