How much can life shatter and transform in just two weeks? Writer/director Erica Tremblay's debut feature-length narrative film Fancy Dance wrestles with that question and more in the tale of a missing Native woman and the ripple effects of her disappearance. Featuring an impeccable cast, the movie transcends its straightforward aesthetic trappings to become a dazzling performance showcase. It's a work that beats with fury and despair, even in its quietest moments.
Fancy Dance is a film of strained relationships, of cultural specifics rooted in character, and conversely, of character moments informed by culture. Tremblay brings to life parts of her upbringing as a member of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation, turning in a vivid, occasionally intense film about an aunt and niece on the run from authorities, and from structures hell-bent on doing more harm than good.
While the story concerns the mystery of a missing Native woman, its twists and turns are entirely emotional. The film's most imposing antagonist is the apathy with which her family is met, a dynamic that yields heart-wrenching moments in which optimism collides headfirst with resigned acceptance, resulting in a spiritual tug-of-war worn on the actors' faces
The film opens with a playful con at a secluded creek. The queer, tomboyish Jax (Lily Gladstone) distracts a naïve target, while her adolescent niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) — dressed like her aunt in short sleeves, and trying to act just as tough — steals his car keys. The pair of them have a wordless understanding, speaking Cayuga with one another when most characters, Native or otherwise, seem content with English.
Roki even tries to match Jax's body language at times, crossing her arms like her resilient aunt. However, their behavior diverges anytime the topic of Roki's missing mother Tawi comes up. Jax leaves plenty of flyers around the Seneca-Cayuga reservation and even conducts investigations of her own, to make up for the failings and indifference of the local police and the FBI. Deep down, however, she seems to know she might not see her sister again.
But while Jax is on the hunt for closure, Roki maintains a sense of buoyancy against all odds. She speaks of her mother in the present tense, while everyone around her seems to reduce Tawi to a "was," and she makes sure to prepare for their mother-daughter dance at the reservation's upcoming powwow. On one hand, this seems to stem from innocence and inexperience; the Native adults around her have seen too many of their women killed, or disappear and never be found. On the other hand, that Roki isn't yet as jaded as Jax is an emotional driving force behind Fancy Dance, even if it feels like she'll eventually be let down.
Complicating matters further is Jax's drug-dealing past and prior convictions, which come under the scrutiny of the state of Oklahoma. Its power and callousness are embodied by a white social worker who takes Roki from Jax and places the young girl with Jax's white father, Frank (Shea Whigham) and his wife Nancy (Audrey Wasilewski). (Jax and Tawi's mother died long ago.)
This leaves Jax and Roki with little choice but to abscond, tracking down various leads themselves as authorities remain on their tail. The ensuing culturally thorny dynamics represent larger structural woes in microcosm.
To most non-Native viewers, tales of missing and murdered women (and the indifference of authorities) have only recently come to the fore, through films like Killers of the Flower Moon, recent seasons of shows like Dexter and True Detective, and podcasts like CBC's Missing & Murdered. These historical and genre tales are rooted in painful truths, which Fancy Dance works into its intimate backdrop in skillful ways.
It's a film whose political outlook is entirely innate, and skillfully woven into the characters' lived realities. Tawi has been missing for a mere two weeks, and while this has turned Jax and Roki's lives upside down, the rest of the world seems to move on with an indifferent shrug. There are a handful of exceptions to be found, like friends and neighbors who knew Tawi, as well as Jax's stripper girlfriend, who passes her scraps of information she overhears. But even Jax's half-brother J.J. (Ryan Begay), a local police officer, finds his hands tied by structures that dismiss Tawi as yet another runaway.
These conundrums are unfortunately expected in a story such as this; Flower Moon, while set a whole century ago, resonates because this brutal indifference persists. Jax knows it too — Fancy Dance is a film in which we even see how the search for missing women has become ritualized, even familiar — which is why she so often steps outside the bounds of local law and tribal methods, "missing person" flyers at the ready, brusquely interrogating people who might know something about what happened to Tawi. The more troubling and unexpected developments, however, involve Frank suddenly reentering their lives after abandoning them years ago.
Frank and Nancy are sympathetic characters who make an effort to understand the nuances of Seneca-Cayuga culture, and the importance of the forthcoming powwow to young Roki. However, their intrusion in the film's fabric is eerily symbolic. They may technically be family, but in assuming Roki's guardianship, they represent a broader and more sinister dynamic: that of cultural genocide, and the forced placement of Native children with white families in order to separate them from their cultures.
These historical ripples don't simply disappear just because Frank and Roki are related by blood, and they continue to radiate outward when Jax breaks Roki out of Frank's home one night. Frank, though he's conflicted, is ultimately the one to call the cops on Jax, despite the harm it might cause her.
There are few moments when these decisions need to be discussed at length to be emotionally understood. This is largely because of how stellar each and every performance in the movie is, resulting in Fancy Dance overcoming even its most consistent aesthetic flaws.
There's nothing ostensibly or overtly wrong with the way Fancy Dance is shot. It just so happens to be a plain and unobtrusive film. Its mildly washed-out color palette seldom adds to the on-screen drama, and it can feel visually repetitive at times, with little by way of rhythm built through its editing. However, Tremblay's trust in her performers is well-earned. While the camera might fail to enhance or emphasize some emotional subtleties, the cast works overtime to ensure these are deeply felt.
Since her breakout performance in Certain Women, Gladstone has proven to be a beautiful force of nature, and they play Jax's frayed edges with aplomb. A strong, reliable presence in Roki's life, the character also experiences moments of moral confusion, like when she's dragging her niece through various criminal scenarios or amusing tightrope heists at lonely strip malls. As a performer, Gladstone seems to carefully consider every relationship and potential consequence during each new scenario, imbuing even the most functionally shot and edited scenes with a raucous intensity.
Whigham brings a similar thoughtfulness to Frank. He bears a sense of burden, which he balances with a spark of hopeful (if misguided) desire to atone, resulting in the corners of the film being fleshed out with a complex empathy for a figure meant to be symbolically villainous. However, the film's secret weapon is Deroy-Olson in her first feature role. It's hard to match a talent like Gladstone, but the young newcomer creates a vibrant sense of shared history through moments of mischief and gentleness built on mutual trust.
Roki is given plenty to say, but at the risk of paying a backhanded compliment to Deroy-Olson, these lines may as well be perfunctory, given how incredibly and imaginatively she performs each moment of fear and childlike desire, wrestling silently between them. Without a word, she turns Roki's expressions into an emotional roadmap. During a scene when Roki revisits taped footage of herself dancing with her mother, the love and longing in her eyes is enrapturing; it feels like Deroy-Olson might float towards the TV screen.
What Fancy Dance lacks in cinematic flair, it more than makes up for in human drama, resulting in a deeply moving piece about characters left stranded far off-shore, with little to hold onto but each other. When it works, it works like a charm.
Fancy Dance opens in select theaters June 21, before premiering on Apple TV+ June 28.
