Sundance 2026 Review: Hold Onto Me – “the real showcase for acting is the subtle performance of Maria Petrova”

11-year-old Iris learns her estranged father, Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard, where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond.

A surreal image of the water above and sky below is revealed to be the perspective of adolescent Iris as she lies back on a floating and leaking boat; an older girlfriend accompanies her.  Iris is left with her big brother as her mother goes off with her boyfriend on vacation.  She gets to see her absentee father, Aris for the first time when spying upon the funeral of her paternal grandfather.  The two are brought together when Iris gets in trouble with absconding with a boat and ends up at the police station, where Aris reluctantly bails her out.  But their relationship does not end there, as Iris is determined to learn more about Aris despite his determination to be left alone in his reprobate ways.

The vastness of water is a recurring theme which reflects the existence of a larger world which Iris wants to explore.  Exposition is handled appropriately, with an offhanded remark about a controlling father, revealing that Iris does not have one.  Most of the time, the camera is from the perspective of Iris, though occasionally there are establishing shots which allow Cyprus to be treated as a character.  The colour palette has a nostalgic quality and the camerawork is not flashy but is always present in the moment.  The shots are not rushed, allowing for a touching moment to unfold through the front windshield of a car where Aris shows a real tenderness to Iris for the first time when discussing whether the girlfriend of her brother is pretty.

At the heart of the story is the father-daughter relationship portrayed by Christos Passalis and Maria Petrova.  Christos Passalis has a showier performance as he has the furthest to go from being hostile and irresponsible to becoming a person who could actually care about someone other than himself.  However, the real showcase for acting is the subtle performance of Maria Petrova, who continues to endear herself with subtle nuances like pretending that a pencil is a cigarette while taking a bath or flicking a knife stuck in a boat as she goes through the rundown shipyard to find her father.  The final shot brings a potent meaning to the title of the movie without delving into melodrama.

The 2026 Sundance Film Festival takes place January 22 to Feb. 1  2026, in person and online, and for more information visit sundance.org.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada; he can be found at LinkedIn.