We Are Family …. More or Less
Review 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, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [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 same name)
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: Relative to the superhero movies so entrenched at domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters—such as the currently-underperforming The Marvels (Nia DaCosta), even though it’s made about $187.4 million globally in 2 weeks of release, but that’s not considered impactful for the MCU legacy it’s trying to maintain (if you really want to see Brie Larson in something that’s truly “super” turn to Apple TV+ streaming for Lessons in Chemistry where she’s a 1950s scientist reduced by the sexism of the times to hosting a local L.A. cooking show which she changes as she sees fit so that it becomes a big hit)—Frybread and Me has little action at all (save for a few interpersonal arguments), but makes a memorable impact with its quiet scenes of character development. The “Me” in the title is Benny (Keir Tallman)—who at times narrates from his later adult perspective—an almost-teenage-Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo boy living with his parents in San Diego, CA in 1990, then disappointedly-surprised to find they’ve arranged for him to spend the summer not enjoying further focus on his favorite band, Fleetwood Mac, but instead living with his grandmother on her Navajo Nation sheep ranch in Arizona. Apparently, they want his time in the near-wilderness to help “make a man” of him, due to some of his feminine-inclinations (which screenwriter-director Luther could certainly relate to in his chief character, with Luther identifying as gay as well as sharing the same Indigenous heritage as Benny). Once on the Rez, Benny’s ready to go back home as soon as he can somehow hitch a ride to Winslow, AZ and raise $39 for a bus ride back to San Diego (neither option likely to happen). A further complication is Grandma Lorraine (Sarah H. Natani) speaks only Navajo (which these folks call Diné, referring variously to the language, their culture, themselves) while Benny’s limited to English, so they both depend on a multi-lingual-relative, such as siblings Aunt Lucy (Kahara Hodges) or Uncle Marvin (Martin Sensmeier), in order for clumsy-communication.
Benny’s summer looks like an endless drag as his only job seems to be repairing the fence around the sheep pen, then 2 events bring big changes: (1) His roughly-same-age-cousin, Dawn (Charley Hogan), is also dropped off there unceremoniously by her mother (Owee Rae)—the kid has the unfortunate nickname of Frybread Face, which she hates (implies round and greasy to her)—with a negative attitude toward Benny given his lack of immersion in his heritage and Navajo language, both of which she fully commands; (2) Uncle Marvin’s disastrous attempt at bull-riding at a local rodeo, leaving him in a wheelchair furthering his disinterest toward Benny, although Dawn begins to warm up to Benny when she learns his family has an annual pass to Sea World so he’s been able to see plenty of famous killer whale Shamu. ⇒Aunt Sharon (Nasheen Sleuth) and Uncle Roger (Jeremiah Bitsui), show up, somehow Benny causes their baby’s first laugh so he’ll have to take part in a later ceremony about this, requiring him to cook (Dawn helps). In the meantime, one day Aunt Lucy (a jewelry maker, ambitions of fame) helps Benny put on some make-up, then later he dances outdoors with Dawn, both of them wearing long skirts and kerchiefs, but there’s also tension between the cousins on a day when she tells him his parents are divorcing, he counters with her father’s in jail, but they reconcile by “borrowing” Marvin’s car to chase down a wayward sheep. Later, Benny’s mother, Ann (Morningstar Angeline), retrieves him, but they have to return not too much later for a funeral when Marvin dies; as they leave, Benny calls out to Lorraine, says “Grandma” in Navajo.⇐
So What? Last weekend was busy enough involving the annual Thanksgiving get-together with some of the in-laws (including a repeat screening of the hilarious Raising Arizona [Joel Coen, 1987] in my brother-in-law’s fabulous home-theater), along with paying attention to a couple of crucial local football (San Francisco 49ers 31-13 over the rival Seattle Seahawks) and basketball (Golden State Warriors 118-112 over the San Antonio Spurs) games, plus having little-to-no-interest in the latest big-ticket-releases in theaters (sorry, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes [Gary Ross; pulled in $29 million in its release with some CCAL support: Rotten Tomatoes 60% positive reviews, Metacritic 54% average score], I’ve been down this road enough already, and Napoleon [Ridley Scott], which I’ll probably see on streaming at some point given my overall respect for this director and his star [Joaquin Phoenix], but the reviews have been flat enough that I had no interest in joining a lot of others in a crowded auditorium [admittedly, Napoleon made $20.6 million in its debut, so I hope all those folks enjoyed it, especially with similar CCAL support: 60% RT positives, MC 64% average score, so again lukewarm responses overall at best]). For awhile, though, I was seriously wondering what I might watch to share with you when Hannah Bae of the San Francisco Chronicle rescued me with a fine review of Frybread Face and Me, which sounded really interesting.
After I watched it, I was glad to discover this so-far-under-the-radar-experience I could have missed it entirely, so I want to call it to your attention so you don’t miss the chance to see it either. Nothing’s overly dramatic in plot situations; acting’s appropriate for a low-key-narrative, mostly about how these young cousins come to better understand/appreciate each other despite their differences; cinematography’s subtly-powerful in depicting what would likely be called barren landscapes (I’ve been through this territory before, always finding it to be beautiful in an unconventional manner, even just on this nondescript sheep ranch as opposed to the more-powerful landscape of the Shiprock/ Four Corners area made famous in 1930s-‘50s John Ford westerns; and the entire experience is marvelously humane as we get to slowly know more about these people and the timeless culture many of them try to maintain, learning along with Benny what the past has provided to meet the many future challenges. If you’d like to know more about what some of the filmmakers think about their project here’s a short video (11:29) with commentary from Luther and some of his actors: Sensmeier, Hodges, Hogan. What they say is insightful, just as it’s significant to see a story about Native Americans with Indigenous people cast in all the roles, just as Martin Scorsese used an abundance of Natives in his Killers of the Flower Moon (a review in our November 9, 2023 posting).
Bottom Line Final Comments: As usual, when Netflix is involved in film distribution of something they want you to be aware of (they may have contributed to production expenses as well, although there are at least a dozen other “In Association With” companies cited in the opening credits, a sure sign of how difficult it probably was to raise [what I assume to be] a limited budget for something that will likely have great resonance with interested audiences but won’t be noticed by the masses) they opened Frybread … in some limited theaters last weekend (apparently nowhere in my San Francisco area) likely to meet that criterion with certain awards societies (like the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Oscars), so I salute the CCAL as I join them to praise this small cinematic-gem, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 100% (admittedly, based on only 23 responses to date so that number may change in the future), although Metacritic's average score at 70% isn’t so enthusiastic (but based on a tiny cluster of 8 reviews, so it could change also), with hopes enough word of mouth might help build an appreciative audience. Netflix doesn’t release box-office-numbers either, so I don’t know how Frybread …’s doing in the few places that it’s playing, although I do know it’s free to Netflix streaming subscribers—of course, if you’re not on Netflix you could consider paying $6.99 (with ads) or $15.49 (no ads) for a month to see Frybread Face and Me along with everything else in their warehouse that you’d have time to watch; that choice is yours, but I’d highly recommend doing whatever you need to in order to see/appreciate this heart-warming-film.
With that supportive-praise in place all that’s left for me to offer is my standard end-of-review-Musical Metaphor-tactic of letting a song provide a last dose of commentary from an aural (rather than a purely verbal) perspective, so I’ll reach back several decades to War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” (on their 1975 album named for the song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH0Q da32IKM because even though Benny feels, at some point in this story with just about everyone but Aunt Lucy, “Sometimes, I don’t speak right / But yet, I know what I’m talking about / Why can’t we be friends?” ultimately he makes the best connections that he can with this small group of distant-living-relatives (with the probable exception of Uncle Marvin, to whom I'll give his own Metaphor [even though I’ve used it 6 times, but it just keeps finding relevance], The Eagles "Desperado" [1973 album named for the song] because when I hear “Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? / You’ve been ridin’ fences for so long now / Oh, you’re a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons / These things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow” I think of the gruff attitudes of Marvin with so little to show for his self-isolation). It’s up to you, either be content listening to these tunes or go a step farther and seek out the marvelous little film that's inspired me to use them here.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
(1) IMDb staff picks for November 2023 (yes, I know November’s about finished, but, if you’re interested, most of this stuff will likely continue; I highly recommend the new season of Fargo on FX cable or Hulu streaming); (2) Napoleon is a big hit internationally (not so much domestically).
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