THE STORY – It’s summer, and 11-year-old Iris is running wild through the streets with her older friend Danae when she learns her estranged father, Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral.
THE CAST – Christos Passalis, Maria Petrova, Jenny Sallo & Aulona Lupa
THE TEAM – Myrsini Aristidou (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 102 Minutes
The architecture of a child’s memory is often built around the gaps left by those who walked away. In “Hold Onto Me,” the commanding first outing from filmmaker Myrsini Aristidou, this void is examined with a precise yet deeply empathetic eye. While the film shares thematic DNA with recent Sundance explorations of father-daughter dynamics, such as “Scrapper,” “Omaha,“ and “In the Summers,“ Aristidou sets her story against the sun-drenched, unvarnished backdrop of Greece. The writer-director avoids the tourist gaze, offering instead an unfiltered and raw perspective of her homeland that finds a rugged beauty in its honesty.
The film opens with a deceptively playful moment: eleven-year-old Iris (Maria Petrova) and her friend Danae (Jenny Sallo) pushing each other into the ocean. It’s a scene of childhood levity, but it is quickly punctured by Danae’s remark about her controlling father; she tells Iris she is “lucky“ not to have one. But for Iris, whose mother is preoccupied with a new boyfriend and a weekend getaway, that luck feels like a heavy silence. After spotting her estranged father, Aris (Christos Passalis), at her grandfather’s funeral, Iris is no longer able to stay present in her own life. As Danae tries to coax her into a TikTok dance, Iris’s face remains a mask of distant melancholy, her mind already tracking the man who lives in the shadows of a decaying shipyard.
When Iris is detained after a boat theft, Aris, back in town only to bury his father and disappear again, is the only one available to bail her out. Their reunion is not a warm embrace, but a collision of two similar, stubborn spirits. Iris declares, “I’m not leaving with him,“ underscoring that her anger at his abandonment remains razor-sharp. Yet, she is drawn to him. What follows is a fragile, halting attempt at connection that unfolds through subtle, finely-tuned interactions. Both Petrova and Passalis deliver strikingly authentic performances, embedding this tale into the viewer’s core.
Aristidou uses this reunion to explore the multi-generational legacy of paternal fracture. As they win together at the horse races, a tradition Aris’s own less-than-perfect father started, the walls between them begin to thin. He opens up, noting that while his father wasn’t the best, knowing you’ll never see someone again is tough. It is a sentiment Iris knows intimately. For Aris, the directive to “Stay out of trouble“ serves as a clumsy substitute for “I love you,“ a sentiment Iris repeats to herself with heartbreaking resilience.
We see that Iris’s defiance is an inheritance; she is a mirror of her father’s own resourcefulness and irresponsibility. A haunting string score acts as the film’s second voice, articulating the reaches of the girl’s interior world where words fail her. The film captures her with a specific, analog freedom that feels like a throwback to a pre-digital era; a world where she navigates the dusty streets on foot, far from the tether of cell phones.
Despite his initial desire to be left alone, Aris eventually allows Iris into his world, working together to pawn off some junk he has collected. It’s a strange way to connect, but Iris discovers she has a natural gift for his brand of survivalism. In one memorable scene, he pretends there is a hair in her sandwich so they can get their money back. It’s a moment of shared, slightly crooked bonding. We see that Iris’s defiance is an inheritance; she is a mirror of her father’s own resourcefulness and irresponsibility.
A haunting string score acts as the film’s second voice, articulating the reaches of the girl’s interior world where words fail her. The film captures her with a specific, analog freedom that feels like a throwback to a pre-digital era; a world where she navigates the dusty streets on foot, far from the tether of cell phones. While the film’s grounded, child-centric perspective creates an intimate connection with Iris, it occasionally keeps the audience at a distance from the scope of Aris’s external reality, leaving the darker tensions of his life feeling like half-formed shadows that lack the same precision as the central bond.
“Hold Onto Me“ is a profoundly rewarding experience that investigates how we seek meaning in the wreckage of relationships. It is a film that refuses to offer easy catharsis, acknowledging that while a father might finally reach back, the shadows of his past remain. Aristidou poignantly reminds us that even in the most fractured lineages, there is a fierce, instinctive drive to belong to one another. It’s a film that could have easily wallowed in a tragic tone but doesn’t; whether Aris will finally hold onto Iris remains a rewarding question, leaving us to contemplate the echoes of a bond that is just starting to bloom.
