FANCY DANCE

Wednesday, November 20, 2024​

Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 &  8:20 pm

Director: Erica Tremblay
Cast: Lily Gladstone, Isabel DeRoy-Olson, Shea Whigham
Running Time:   91 minutes
Language: English, Cayugaa

Hamptons International Film Festival: Excellence in Narrative Filmmaking; Austin Film Critics Association; Breakthrough Artist: Lily Gladstone; Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards: Excellence in Independent Filmmaking. Tacoma Film Festival; Best Narrative Feature. Eight other wins, four other nominations. 

“A potent, layered and beautiful heartache of a movie grappling with traumas but finding hope and even joy in the bond between these women.”—Radheyan Simonpillai, CTV’s Your Morning

“Fancy Dance” focuses on white intervention in Native communities and the challenge of keeping families together no matter what. 

Lily Gladstone ( “Killers of the Flower Moon”) plays Jax, a queer Cayuga woman living with her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) on a reservation in Oklahoma. Jax’s sister Wadatawi has been missing for two weeks, and Jax fears the worst. Tribal police and the FBI have turned up nothing. . 

Roki’s forcibly placed in the care of her estranged grandfather (Shea Whipham). Acting on pure instinct, Jax “kidnaps” Roki and the pair try to make their way to the tribal Powwow in Oklahoma City where Roki’s hoping that her missing mother would miraculously show up at the Pow Wow as planned for the mother/daughter fancy dance. Originally a war dance, this contemporary version survives as a symbol of expression of native pride and the gathering of tribal members.

“Fancy Dance” excels at showing the authentic lives led by Jax and other women, making the most of the few options for their life on the reservations: minor drug dealing, stripping. Gladstone and Deroy-Olson work well off each other, betraying no judgement. 

Roki and Jax’s journey together is a dangerous one, with white men posing a threat to them at every turn.  

Despite some sentimentality, “Fancy Dance” is a film about resistance against a careless, racist government that thrives on assimilation and cultural amnesia. The same FBI that made its good name off of the murders of Osage people now cares little about  the harm caused by racism and greed. “Fancy Dance” reminds us of how communities care for each other, regardless of the risk involved. Director Erica Tremblay’s narrative debut is impressive, heralding a promising talent.