Céline Roustan
How far would you go to get some TLC? That’s the question posed when Leah meets an unusually attentive nurse in the ER – one who takes very good care of her. Mixing dark humor with genre elements in her directorial debut, writer/director Brittany Ashley crafts a surprisingly nuanced narrative, with emotional depth hidden under its entertaining surface layer.
While on a psychedelic retreat and embarking on a mushroom-induced journey, Ashley wrote in her journal “Would do anything to be taken care of!” – a realisation she later described as “revelatory”. This experience prompted her to pen a character around the idea of “how far would you be willing to go to receive affection and care?”. From this starting point, she fleshed out a narrative incorporating body horror elements with the idea of having to pay a hefty price to get what we want.
“A perfect marriage of my own desires, experiences and freaky interests”
The setting for Take Care comes from a more personal experience for the director, with Ashley revealing that nurses were always “extremely nice“ to her, making hospitals feel like a safe place – the opposite of how they feel for many others. She also admits that she “loves writing stories about messy women on the verge of imploding”. As she puts it, Take Care is “a perfect marriage of my own desires, experiences and freaky interests”.
The film starts on a strong note, with an emotionally heightened cold open that is immediately intriguing. Its emotional depth reveals itself with subtlety as the story progresses, but Ashley makes sure to blend it seamlessly with the entertaining and bloody side of the narrative. She strikes the perfect tonal balance to make the emotional side of the writing compelling without sacrificing the absurdly fun elements. From the audience’s perspective, we feel for the character while also being on the edge of our seat, waiting to see what she will do next to get to go back to the ER.
Courtney Pauroso puts in an attention-grabbing performance as the lead character in Take Care
Director of Photography Matt Miller gives the film a visual look that enhances the story’s dual layers, using careful framing to heighten both the audience’s enjoyment and to immerse us in Leah’s thoughts. Editor Claudia Restrepo expertly plays with the rhythm of the film, slowing down moments to let us sit with the emotions at play or accelerating them to intensify the tension, anticipation and anxiety of the scenes.
In the lead role, Courtney Pauroso delivers a remarkable performance. While she conveys the surface level of the film with sharp comedic timing, she also brings to the screen the layers of the narrative with an impressive nuance, grounding the story in its emotional depth without affecting its deliberately absurd premise. Out of sync with the world that surrounds her, her disconnect becomes a major attribute in what makes the film so effective.
Ahead of its online debut with S/W, Take Care made its way around the festival circuit, with a premiere at Frameline quickly followed by a screening at the Palm Springs ShortFest, along with selections at Aesthetica and Nashville. Ashley is currently developing a feature version of Take Care, alongside other projects “ranging from a low budget slasher to an extremely expensive gay romantic dramedy set in the 1930s/1940s”.