'Fancy Dance' review: Native mother disappears in Oklahoma

Lily Gladstone brings the power of the performance, and an Oklahoma of reservation life and white privilege is the evocative backdrop. But a missing indigenous woman lurks at the center of the independent drama “Fancy Dance,” hinting at the delicate mix of absence and presence that director and co-writer Erica Tremblay seeks in her thoughtful and vivid directorial debut.

A Seneca-Cayuga filmmaker previously known for his documentaries (and a wonderful short film, also starring Gladstone, called “Little Chief”), Tremblay infuses “Fancy Dance,” co-written with Miciana Alise, with a verisimilitude born of knowledge of the corners of a place. of comfort and everyday indignities. He not only has the plight of devastated native communities in mind as he introduces the tough Jax (Gladstone), always searching for his sister, never far from self-inflicted trouble, but also, through the evolving bond of a aunt. and niece, how bruised hearts survive in an unresponsive world.

Jax's teenage niece, Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olsen), is apparently in his care now since Roki's mother, Tawi, a dancer at a local strip club, disappeared from the reservation two weeks earlier. Mother and daughter have been preparing a dance for the upcoming convention in Tulsa, and Roki, who boasts an innocent smile, has not been dissuaded by her aunt that something is wrong. But Jax, whose lax tutelage comes with five-finger discount lessons, is just trying to steer Roki away from a terrible possibility. With tribal cops (including Jax's own brother) paralyzed and the feds indifferent to the epidemic of missing and murdered people on tribal lands, the search feels more and more like it's Jax's alone.

Things get worse when Jax, who has a criminal record, loses custody of Roki to his white grandfather, Frank (Shea Whigham), a distracted figure in their lives now trying to make up for lost time. Affection is not the problem for Frank and his wife (Audrey Wasilewski), but they show little interest in the culture that Roki clearly appreciates. So, under the guise of taking his niece to Congress to meet her mother, Jax breaks his biggest law yet (kidnapping) to keep Roki close and hopefully find an answer to what happened to Tawi. . In well-placed moments, Samantha Crain's wonderfully evocative score of tribal vocals and spare melodies even acts as a kind of spiritual guide.

Surely one of the most exciting repertoires in current cinema is Gladstone's ensemble of rich and varied indigenous characters, a belated response to the film industry's own sins of promoting the invisibility of a people. His Jax, awkward, vulnerable to vices, and proud to teach Cayuga to Roki, is a vivid representation of flint and worry, suspicious of many things but touchingly sure of what needs protection. It's unfortunate, then, that Roki's character, as written, is too innocent to be completely convincing. When she's not saddled with awkward exposition laden with the questions he asks and the beliefs he holds, Deroy-Olsen's youthful energy is a solidly engaging companion to the bitter turmoil within Gladstone's Jax.

There are also some script logic issues, starting with why authorities would cover the media with an Amber Alert for Roki when the problem being conveyed is the law's apathy toward missing indigenous women. And yet, Tremblay's model for escape suspense is effective, primarily by eschewing exploitation in favor of scenes that make evident the sense of lives susceptible to being uprooted.

Tremblay still makes comments about a mercurial and messy justice system, even in a particularly tense exchange with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that is unexpectedly resolved. However, she is approaching the emotional climax that matters most to her and that is ultimately satisfying as a description of how colorful, vigorous ritual expressions of honor and joy connect generations of Native women who have been given little reason. to believe that someone else has your best interests at heart. In “Fancy Dance,” the missing are a crisis, but the closing rites of a culture should not be in danger either.