Missing Home

Pak Domu and Mak Domu live in a village on the shore of Lake Toba. They have four children. Sarma stays with them; the other three are in cities and have not come home for years. The family wants all of them for a ceremony and nobody comes. So they make a plan: they will announce that they are divorcing. The news travels and the three return at once. The parents act as if they are fighting. The plan works; but once the children arrive the real matters open and nothing goes as the parents expected. Bene Dion Rajagukguk writes and directs. Arswendy Bening Swara, Tika Panggabean, Boris Bokir and Gita Bhebhita are in the cast. It is an Indonesian production. It opened on 2 June 2022 and reached more than two million eight hundred thousand viewers. It was shot at the end of 2021 around Lake Toba in North Sumatra. Its ground is Batak culture; the director said he made that choice to show the region, and the language and customs are directly present. The matter it treats is children choosing their own lives; the father has set a separate road for each and none of them wants it. The narrative begins as comedy and becomes entirely drama in the second half. The father is its hardest passage and the film grants him no easy change. Its limit is structure; the change of register is abrupt and the last section runs long. Who it is for: viewers who like Indonesian cinema and family drama. Who it is not for: the emotional dose is high, the register uneven, and the cultural references local.