Lily Gladstone is having her moment. It is excellent to see her out front, gaining name recognition as an indigenous actress. Here, we have a film steeped in tribal culture, and it is told from a member of the Seneca tribe herself, Erica Tremblay, in her feature directorial debut. Apple Plus, I suppose out of gratitude for Lily Gladstone killing those flower moons, is carrying it. The narration is Roy Samuelson, who is everywhere these days.

Fancy Dance is very much a representation effort for indigenous artists of North America. The movie begins with a thanks/certification from the Cherokee nation, and the movie largely takes place on tribal land. The cast is primarily all indigenous talent, except perhaps Shea Wiggham, and this experience is very much that of the perspective of indigenous folk.

Gladstone plays a woman with a somewhat sketchy past, whose sister goes missing, and she ends up in charge of her niece (Isabel Deroy-Olson), who shared a love of her culture with her mother, and now hopes to still learn about what it means to be an indigenous woman and stay close to her roots. They try to remain optimistic about her mother returning, but the statistics on Native American women disappearing is a statistic that’s been explored already in movies like Wind River, and TV Shows like True Detective: Night Country. So, I think the audience has expectations.

The film turns when social services shows up to take away the niece, based on Gladstone’s record, and place her with her grandparents, who seek to homogenize her and slowly strip away all her tribal things that she holds dear, that she shared with her still missing mom.

the story comes to a climax when Gladstone technically “kidnaps’ her niece, but for a good reason. The girl believes her mother will be at this big annual tribal dance, and Gladstone had previously promised to take her there. All of this is against an investigation on what really happened to the missing mother, and it has so much commentary on this life and the uniqueness of the experience.

I loved this. I actually liked Gladstone here more than I did in Killers Of The Flower Moon, because instead of standing in the shadows of white male titans, she owns this film from start to finish, with a commmanding performance that shows off her heart and true range. I wish this had been the film she was nominated for, because she’s clearly very connected to this role.

The girl is also terrific, and Tremblay’s direction works all the way through until the end. I couldn’t get on board with that is a little spoilery, but I apologize. The end does feature the dance, in some form, and without spoiling, I did find it a bit too convenient that the two dances they would have needed for this film were announced back to back. Had Tremblay allowed more time at the dance itself, and spaced the dances apart, it would have ratcheted up that tension. Instead, the obvious convenience pours through.

Also, the ICE agent that approaches Gladstone and asks her if she’s a legal citizen is nonsense. I am sure there are racist assholes in that job, and he might be indicative of that, but Gladstone speaks perfect English, even with a bit of what is obviously a regional American accent. The idea that she somehow crossed over from somewhere is just that agents inability to tell brown people apart. We should not be having ICE agents who are this aggressive for no reason.

Now, with all this representation, I have to wonder… why didn’t we find an indigenous narrator? I love Roy, and he’s usually like comfort food because he always seems attached to projects with well written audio description. Hearing him at the top usually puts me at ease. But, I have to wonder if a film that has gone this far out of their way to represent and showcase this very specific minority shouldn’t also have someone from that community doing the narration. It would have been an excellent opportunity to give a lesser used talent the spotlight. I don’t fault Roy for taking the gig, because I assume narrators are hired without necessarily getting to see the product in advance. Even something like Wind River, which has this same focus, but has two white leads would have made a little sense for Roy, but I think the only non-indigenous talent are the asshole ICE agent, and the grandparents who also aren’t presented in the best light. This is very anti-White Savior, typically painting the few that are here as being out of touch with reality, and if I was in charge of hiring a narrator, I think I would have picked up on the tone, and the celebration of representation, and given a lesser known talent soar.

Final Grade: A-