Find Me takes you for a hike. It’s part travel guide to National Parks in the West, and partly a heartwarming story about how to make a difference in someone’s life.
Find Me was written by, directed by, and stars Tom Huang as Joe. He’s a semi-depressed accountant. He’s been divorced a while. His mother demands more attention than she needs. Life is a drag and a bore.
The best part of his day is his friendship with Amelia (Sara Amini). Amelia works at the same place Joe does. She likes to travel and keeps telling Joe he needs to get out of the city and see some beautiful places in nature. She gives him a book full of easy adventures that she wrote just for him.
Then she disappears. Finally he gets a letter from her. It says, “Find Me.” He’s not a hiker, outdoorsy kind of guy. Nevertheless, he takes the adventure book and goes looking for her.
Joe’s search for Amelia takes him to Zion National Park, Death Valley, and Yosemite. At each place, Amelia has geocached an SD card for Joe’s phone.
He plugs in the SD card and gets a video from Amelia with a heartfelt message. It gives him a destination for the next hike.
Along the way, Joe meets some interesting people. My favorite was a waitress (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). She took him into the desert, filled him with s’mores, and made him look at the stars all night.
He also meets Amelia’s sister, Helena (Krizia Bajos). She knows more about what’s going on with Amelia than Joe does. She fills him in on it, in case you hadn’t figured it out for yourself already.
The plot felt a bit improbable to me, but it was warm and touching in spite of that. The plot reminded me of an English film called Burn Burn Burn. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it had similarities.
The hikes were absolutely breathtaking. Beautiful. It made me want to head for the nearest National Park immediately. For an indie film made on a shoestring budget, the visuals are unbeatable at any price. You can get details about the gorgeous hikes at the film’s website.
Take a look at the trailer.
You can watch Find Me on Amazon Prime Video. That seems to be the only streamer with the film right now.