Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
Fancy Dance (Erica Tremblay) rated R 90 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Jax (Lily Gladstone) and Tawi (Hauli Gray [but we don’t see much of her]) are sisters, members of Oklahoma’s Seneca-Cayuga Nation. Their Native mother died sometime before this story begins, with their White father, Frank (Shea Whigham), then marrying a White woman, Nancy (Audrey Wasilewski), with little support from his daughters. Speaking of daughters, Tawi’s 13-year-old Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson) spends a lot of time with Aunt Jax—our story opens with them catching crayfish in a river to sell to a local guy for bait—especially because Mom’s gone missing for some days now, worrying Roki because she hopes to participate in the mother-daughter dance at an important upcoming powwow. Jax tries to be upbeat about it, insisting Tawi will surely be at the event, but privately she’s concerned, especially because there are now “Missing” posters of her sister tacked up everywhere along with the ones she carries around to show to anyone she meets, but with no reports of Tawi, so she tries to channel some hope into helping Roki prepare for the dances. (Jax used to participate in such mother-daughter dances too, but since the death of her matriarchal-partner she’s generally pulled away from the powwows.) Roki reminisces about her Mom, looks at old photos of her and dance footage from previous events, tries on some of her clothes, especially a fringed jacket to wear at the dances. Jax’s concern is growing so she gets drunk one night, has to be helped home by her uncle, JJ (Ryan Begay), I assume a brother of her lone-gone mother. Then, Frank and Nancy come to visit with clear tension between father and daughter; he reminds her that years ago he tried to get his children to leave the reservation but they refused, wanting to remain close to their heritage. Things get worse when Jax tries to apply to foster Roki, but she’s denied because of her past criminal record (possibly theft, based on what we’ll see a bit later), so Roki’s taken by the authorities to live with Frank and Nancy, which the girl has to accept.
Frustrated by this, Jax quietly calls into Roki’s room one night, tells her niece to get Frank’s truck keys so they can slip away, ultimately bound for the powwow in Tulsa; Frank calls the police so an Amber Alert is issued with photos of Jax and Roki in local newspapers and TV coverage, even as they manage to elude detection, sometimes helping themselves to stolen goods at various stores along the way, although when Roki tries to take something at one location Jax makes her put it back even as the security guard’s suspicious so outside they end up being questioned by an ICE agent as if they're undocumented immigrants but manage to talk their way out of trouble, although Roki has to wait in the “cop car” while Jax converses with the agent. (Roki’s just begun to have her period, so she leaves a bloody “present” in the guy's backseat.) ⇒Trouble then grows between Jax and Roki because as the older one calls JJ, tells him she doesn’t really expect to find Tawi, the girl overhears this, is devastated, then it gets worse when a guy recognizes them, calls the cops, but he’s wounded by Roki who (unknown to Jax) has taken Jax’s pistol from her bag. Cops arrive, seemed to me they catch Roki but Jax gets away, yet when Jax calls Frank he has no knowledge of where Roki is, but—based on a tip JJ got—Tawi’s body's been found in a nearby lake. Jax continues on to the powwow, briefly joins the mother-daughter dance, then withdraws; however, during the dance to honor Missing and Murdered Women, Jax sees Roki dancing, decides to join her as they seem to be reconciled.⇐
So What? While some might complain (as some always will) about none of the principal actors in this drama are from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation—Gladstone’s of Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and European heritage; DeRoy-Olson’s from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, Yukon and Ebb and Flow First Nation in Manitoba, Canada; Begay’s Navajo—at least these are Indigenous people playing Native Americans (so much better than much of Hollywood’s history where notable Indian parts in Westerns were usually played by White actors [such as German-heritage Henry Brandon as Indian Chief Scar in John Ford’s famous 1956 The Searchers], although things did get somewhat better with Native actors in significant Native roles in such celebrated mainstream fare as Little Big Man [Arthur Penn, 1970] and Best Picture Oscar-winner Dances with Wolves [Kevin Costner, 1990], with a major addition in Smoke Signals [Chris Eyre, 1998] which featured Indigenous people in all the primary roles), plus Fancy Dance director (feature debut after several short documentaries)/co-screenwriter (with Miciana Alise) Tremblay is Seneca-Cayuga, so she knows of what she presents in this film. If you’d like to know more about this Native Nation, just go here. Once you’ve satisfied your interests in that direction, you might also want to know more about Fancy Dances, so here's an extensive source which chronicles how this ritual may have originated with the Ponca tribe, with war dance implications, in the 1920s-‘30s before evolving into something now frequently found in the powwows of many Native Nations. While it was first done only by men, over time women’s Fancy Dance also came about with the fringed shawl the dancers wear implying a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Given that I didn’t do any research into what the title of this film refers to before I watched it (should have; oh, well), I wasn’t all that aware an actual Fancy Dance occurs within this narrative, yet there’s a photo of it just above so I’m a little at a loss to know exactly how this title conveys connection to the troubled relationship of Jax and Roki, but any explorations/explanations anyone would like to offer me are certainly welcome in the Comments option at the very end of this posting.
What I can say clearly is that both Gladstone and DeRoy-Olson are excellent in their roles (which I’d expect from Gladstone after her Best Actress Oscar nomination for her impact in Killers of the Flower Moon [Martin Scorsese, 2023; review in our November 9, 2023 posting] where she seemed to have a solid shot at winning until the prize ultimately went to Emma Stone for Poor Things [Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023; review in our March 13, 2024 posting]), with Gladstone given the situation of completely commanding this story, more so than in her somewhat-limited screen time in … Flower Moon, while DeRoy-Olson’s screen-debut proved to be a marvelous counter-presence in this subtly-intense family drama. I also appreciated how so much backstory (and forward-story, for that matter) is only implied, not explored in what could become pedantic-detail. We really know nothing about Jax’s mother nor her marriage to Frank, we don’t know what happened with Tawi, we don’t know what will become of Jax and Roki’s lives after the Tulsa powwow because Jax already has past convictions that prevent her from becoming a second-mother to her niece, plus she probably also faces new kidnapping charges (unless Frank can somehow intervene for her), but that’s all left to our speculations without stretching out what already exists as a rightly-timed story that spins us into a flow of connected events, then gracefully leaves without any need to explain all that wasn’t specified.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Fancy Dance came to “select theaters” (basically means: “probably nowhere near you”) on June 21, 2024; however, I have no box-office info for its presence in domestic (U.S.-Canada) venues, although there’s a report of a $16,683 opening in the U.K. What matters for those who might care to watch it is its availability on streaming where it’s free for Apple TV+ subscribers (or you can get in for 7 days free, then $9.99 monthly if you want to stay). The CCAL’s generally highly-supportive of this film with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a commanding 96% (I’ve been on a hot-roll with them lately as I’ve given 4 stars-reviews to Hit Man [Richard Linklater; review in our June 19, 2024 posting], The Great Lillian Hall [Michael Cristofer; review in our June 26, 2024 posting], and The Last Stop in Yuma County [Francis Galluppi; review in our July 3, 2024 posting], along with my top 5 stars for revisiting Funny Girl [William Wyler, 1968; review in our June 26, 2024 posting], which they’ve respectively [and respectfully] reviewed positively at 96%, 94%, 96%, and 94%), with the frequently more-restrained Metacritic average score at 77%. (The Metacritic scores for these films are, respectively, 82%, 78%, 72%, and 88%.) However, this impressive streak was broken up last week by Beverly Hills Cop: Alex F (Mark Malloy; review in our July 10, 2024 posting) with me at 3 stars, RT at 66%, MC at 55% (the heat is now off.)
I find Fancy Dance to be beautiful in its heartfelt-directness and explorations of interpersonal traumas, highly recommend it to you, as does The Hollywood Reporter’s Justin Lowe (a review from last year’s Sundance Film Festival): “Fancy Dance presents a broader narrative that emphasizes the connections that sustain families, communities and tribal nations, even when confronted with a legacy of disenfranchisement. Tremblay’s film validates the varied expressions of that experience with an affirming account of resilience and hope that sparkles with authentic performances, sensitive scripting and a genuine sense of place that resonate well after the final credits roll.” I think those of us who support this film have made our points well enough for encouraging you to join us which I hope you'll do regarding this obscure gem, so I’ll just move on with my usual device of a review-ending Musical Metaphor, but this time I’ll do something different by sending you to this informative site which presents the 5 finalists for the Spotlight Dance Special for the Women’s Fancy Dance at Apache Gold Casino & Resort Powwow, March 4, 2024, so you may see for yourself what Fancy Dance is all about.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
(1) Remembering Shelly Duvall; (2) Nielsen streaming champs for week of June 10-16, 2024.
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us! Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please
use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.
OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.
Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 5,692—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.) Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):
No comments:
Post a Comment