“Fancy Dance” (2023) starts two weeks into the established routine between Jax Goodiron (Lily Gladstone) and her niece, Roki Goodman (Isabel Deroy-Olson), on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation Reservation, their neighborhood, in the aftermath of the disappearance of Jax’s sister and Roki’s mother, Wadatawi Goodiron, nicknamed Tawi (Hauli Sioux Gray). Jax is trying to take care of her niece and find her missing sister without dampening her niece’s excitement for the Grand Nations’ Powwow as reigning champions of the mother and daughter dance. Oklahoma Department of Human Services, aka Child Protective Services, and Indian Child Welfare deem Jax ineligible to become Roki’s temporary legal guardian because of Jax’s criminal history. Instead DCF chooses Jax’s father, Frank (Shea Whigham) ,and stepmother, Nancy (Audrey Wasilew), on the condition that they supervise Jax’s visits, which makes it unlikely that Roki will make it to the powwow. So Jax sneaks Roki out of Frank and Nancy’s house and borrows their car for a road trip to Oklahoma City, but the authorities see Jax as a kidnapper and Roki as her victim and issue an Amber Alert. Will Jax find her sister, and will they make it to the powwow before the authorities catch them?
If you don’t love Gladstone at her “Fancy Dance,” then you don’t deserve her at her “Killers of the Flower Moon.” She filmed this movie during breaks for the latter! (One extra accidentally uses Lily instead of her character’s name.) “Fancy Dance” is one of the best movies released in 2024, and “Killers of the Flower Moon” wishes that it could be so good (for fans of the latter, apples and oranges, but if you are honest with yourself, it is true.). If movies are empathy machines, then Gladstone is the oil that powers them. In a less talented actor’s hands, a character like Jax may not be relatable, but Gladstone makes Jax seem flawless.
Jax is a butch lesbian, Native woman who does not have a lot of money, so she commits property crimes to make ends meet then escalates to drug dealing to oil rig workers, who are never deemed criminal despite being the most objectively dangerous element in “Fancy Dance”, to afford a lawyer for the custody dispute and continue her unofficial investigation into her sister’s disappearance thus putting herself in constant jeopardy. If you are a straight woman, you may question your sexuality after you see Jax spit game at a clothed stripper, Sapphire (Crystle Lightning), who is eager to become Jax;’s girlfriend. Jax is also willing to play the innocent oblivious Native woman bathing at the side of a river to distract her latest mark. Without unnecessary dialogue, in their feature film debut, Native American director and cowriter Erica Tremblay and cowriter Miciana Alise trust that the audience has enough brains to deduce from the overall situation and rely on Gladstone’s organic acting skills that Jax is rising to the occasion of meeting Herculean responsibilities: preserve her niece’s Native identity and keep Native women, including herself, safe. For example, during a ritual, Jax improvises. The only wood available is from a purloined photo frame and the only water is chlorinated from a pool, but the tradition survives another generation.
Twenty-first century US is an inhospitable place for both mission statements. In the first third of “Fancy Dance,” Roki and Jax’s time together is peaceful but always on the border of criminal activity. With Roki’s admiration for her aunt, she is given to imitating her aunt’s tough woman, arm crossed stance and ignorantly heading towards a life as a criminal to survive and to indulge in little girl joys by shoplifting a candy necklace. She is fundamentally a wide-eyed innocent, malleable girl playing dress up whether in her mom’s see-through, plastic platform heels, her sleeveless t-shirts like her aunt or her good girl suburban teenage drag while at her grandparents. Keeping their culture alive is practically impossible. Instead of regalia, Roki settles for a satin, long fringe sleeve shirt. Roki is a bit of a dumb, sweet kid without a lot of critical thought so as the situation escalates, her understandable emotional reaction exacerbates the situation in ways that Jax could never conceive. Jax keeping secrets from her niece to keep her safe and leave her with some hope endangers the niece’s relationship with her aunt more than authorities ever could as her lack of belief in her aunt’s veracity drives a wedge between them.
The authorities are ineffective outsiders who are less concerned with actual danger or preserving culture than their idea of appropriateness and would be shocked and offended to discover that they could be considered colonizers. The fundamental authority is Frank and Nancy, who express respect and probably would consider themselves well-intentioned allies, but default to the standards of state executive agencies over family ties and their personal experiences thus making Jax and Roki take more desperate measures. Whigham is one of the great character actors of our time, so it is a real privilege to see him and Gladstone interact. It becomes a de facto criminal act for Roki to go to the powwow or associate with people who speak her Native tongue, Cayuga. ICE Agent Lewis (Cory Hart) has the nerve to question Jax and Roki, ask for identification and put his hand on his holster while Jax retrieves it. From a historical, legal perspective, the agent is the one who is an illegal immigrant who should be deported.
The kidnapping of a thirteen-year-old makes the news because of Frank and Nancy’s identity and their relationship to the government whereas a missing Native woman, who is also Frank’s daughter, is just written off as an irresponsible criminal either a drug dealer or sex worker, not a woman of innate human dignity in danger. Frank becomes complicit in the inaction because he is more interested in giving his grandchild to his wife who could not have one than being a good father to his daughters and protecting them. During Jax’s investigation, the filmmakers show that any woman, even one who is clearly disinterested in partying with guys, is in danger. A Native woman is unprotected regardless of her sexual unavailability or respectability, which frames Roki’s celebration of her first period as bittersweet. Soon she will not be seen as a little girl, but someone who could disappear, and no one would care. It becomes an unspoken fear that Roki could end up like her mother in an eleventh-hour scene that rivals the denouement of “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991). “Fancy Dance” frames Native women’s existence as inherently illegal or under siege from attack and thus surviving becomes an act of resistance and rebellion, especially with the constant interference and intrusion of colonizers on their land, their person and their sacred spaces.
In contrast, JJ (Ryan Begay), Jax and Tawi’s half-brother, is a member of the Tribal Police Department, who plays everyone as knowing less than he does because of the limitations on his authority. The feds have jurisdiction, but their inaction reflects that they do not care. He acts as the liaison between both worlds while simultaneously discouraging and encouraging Jax to act when he cannot so he can act within his thin legal authority. There is also a wide array of Native American women besides Jax and Tawi with small, significant supporting roles: Ruth (Patrice Fisher), a lawyer who is rooting for Jax to get on the straight and narrow while unconditionally supporting them to her capacity, the fearsome Ricky (Tamara Podemski), who operates a drug ring that her son Boo (Blayne Allen) fronts and may remind some of the matriarch from “Red Rocket” (2021) except scarier, and her obedient daughter, Phaya (Kylie Dirtseller), who is more sympathetic but only can be so bothered to help. Each of these characters walk a tightrope to avoid attracting unwanted attention and maintaining their autonomy and freedom in a restricted way that Jax and Roki cannot.
“Fancy Dance” is the kind of movie that seems effortless and simple, which is really difficult to accomplish and should not be taken for granted. It takes an underpublicized hot button cause such as the neglect of justice for murdered and indigenous women but does not treat it like entertainment and would not be classified as a true crime story. Instead the film tells a very specific, personal story about people’s lives and the ripple effect of one missing person without making it joyless or depressing or reducing the humanity of the missing to being a murder victim or a case. Instead it centers multiple three-dimensional characters of a demographic that usually gets marginalized. It is the perfect independent film that makes it easy for moviegoers to forget that they are watching a fictional film with an ensemble of talented actors. Best of all, Tremblay and Alise do not make the film feel like the cinematic equivalent of eating your vegetables to be an ethical filmgoer. It is a great American masterpiece that is a joy to watch on its own merits, not because it is a responsibility.
