Love Me Instead

Sedat is a guard at a closed prison in Konya. He is given a particular task: to take a prisoner called Musa to his home town for one day. Musa has been inside fourteen years and will go back at the end of it. Outside he sees his wife, his mother and his daughter Yonca. As the day goes on he senses that something does not fit. His mother finally says what she has hidden for years: Yonca is not his daughter; his own daughter was killed. Mehmet Ada Öztekin writes and directs. The cast includes Sarp Akkaya, Songül Öden, Ercan Kesal, Aleyna Özgeçen, Füsun Demirel, Güner Özkul and Ushan Çakır. It was released on Netflix on 19 November 2021. Öztekin was known for Miracle in Cell No. 7 and works the same vein here: a prison, a father and a child, and a truth being hidden. The idea is the single day's leave. Because the time is limited every scene carries a clock, and the character has a few hours to decide what to do with what he has learned. The strongest element is Sarp Akkaya's performance; the character does not react in most scenes and the feeling stays suppressed. The emotional pitch is high and the ending openly sets out to make you cry, which is the director's known choice. Who it is for: viewers who like Turkish emotional drama and prison stories. Who it is not for: the manipulation is plain, the plot rests on coincidence, and some characters exist only to function.