‘Fancy Dance’ REVIEW: Tenderness Persists in a Journey Interrupted by Tension
‘Fancy Dance’ REVIEW: Tenderness Persists in a Journey Interrupted by Tension
Lily Gladstone and Isabel Deroy-Olson in Fancy Dance || Photo by Significant/Confluential, taken from Apple TV+
It should all be so simple. Roki looks forward to doing the Mother-Daughter dance at an upcoming powwow. Her aunt, Jax, cares for her while looking for leads regarding her missing sister, Tawi — also Roki’s mother. When Roki has to live with her grandparents, Jax sneaks her out so they can go to the powwow together. At the end, they do a dance together and it’s a heartwarming scene.
But being Native American in the Seneca-Cayuga Reservation adds more difficult layers into the daily lives of Jax and Roki. This is clear from the film’s opening sequence, where Jax and Roki steal a man’s belongings and drive off in his car. It’s got a tense atmosphere, and it’s also an interesting misdirection — this isn’t an in medias res moment that they’re forced into wherein they suddenly get lost in the middle of the story. This is their daily life. It’s not even something that grants them luxury. It’s only to ensure their day-to-day survival.
Tawi’s extended disappearance prompts the visit of Child Protective Services, who deem Jax an unfit guardian due to her criminal history. They’re the ones who decide to place Roki with her grandparents. The grandparents, Frank and his second wife, Nancy, aren’t out-and-out villains here. They do seem to really care for Roki. Jax couldn’t care less though, seeing her father as a man who chose to leave the reservation as soon as their mother passed away to enjoy the full privilege of being a white man in America.
There’s a scene with Roki and Nancy that sums up the film’s main concerns brilliantly. It’s supposed to be a tender way of welcoming Roki into a safer, more stable life. It’s also clear as day that Roki living with them would inevitably suppress her relationship to her cultural heritage by way of assimilation.
The film knows that good intentions can still be a way for racism to creep in, especially for people who don’t think it can play a consequential effect in their daily lives. Contrast the near-instant Amber alert and nationwide manhunt that goes on when the authorities are alerted of Roki’s disappearance by her white grandparents with their ambivalence towards the weeks-long disappearance of Tawi.
Filmmaker Erica Tremblay worked extensively on documentaries before making Fancy Dance. It’s an experience that helps with adding context to each character’s justification of why they’re doing the right thing. Frank and his wife, Nancy, think they’re doing right by offering Roki stability, but they call the cops on Jax with only a little hesitance.
Jax thinks she’s doing right by keeping Roki’s connection to her culture alive, but a daily life of making ends meet through unscrupulous ways may not be the best way of teaching Roki how to live with stable, financial independence. It doesn’t help matters that despite the grace that the characters have when they talk about Tawi, there seems to be little indication that if found, she wouldn’t disappear for a long stretch again to ensure her own survival.
Even though the film sees a casual sweetness to Jax and Roki’s relationship during their road trip, Tremblay finds ways to pump Fancy Dance with a lot of tension during their journey. It’s in their shared glances when something doesn’t go right. It’s in their pickpocketing schemes. It’s in the casual appearance of ICE agents in the background of the frame. If Tremblay chooses to helm a thriller in the future, there’s no doubt she would ace it.
Lily Gladstone brings a lot of tenderness to Jax’s grit. Even when Jax spends time with her girlfriend, Sapphire, Gladstone presents someone who’s still got her guard up when she’s being vulnerable. When Jax is finally brought to tears at the story’s emotional climax, Gladstone doesn’t break their character’s history by going for a big well of tears.
Isabel DeRoy-Olson proves capable of matching Gladstone’s wavelength, knowing when to match their physicality and when to add individuality to Roki’s coming-of-age at a transformative period in her life. There’s also a scene when Frank realizes that his choices went severely awry that Shea Whigham nails.
Fancy Dance premiered at Sundance in 2023, but it was in February this year that Apple TV+ announced they had acquired it for worldwide distribution. This was at the height of Gladstone’s own awards-season campaign for their breakout turn in Killers of the Flower Moon, an Apple TV+ co-production and epic historical analysis of how the Osage were gradually robbed of their riches and removed from their culture by colonization.
Now on the streamer’s platform, hopefully more people find their way into the film’s wavelength — showing how American racism overtakes stories of family dramas today. Going to a cultural celebration for the weekend shouldn’t have to be so difficult.
