REVIEW: ‘Fancy Dance’ Further Proves Lily Gladstone’s Star Power

Lily Gladstone’s face was made to be on screen. In Fancy Dance, the directorial debut by Erica Tremblay, she continues to prove that her turns in films such as Certain Women and Killers of the Flower Moon weren’t flukes. Delivering a subdued, heartfelt, and internalized performance, Gladstone anchors this profound portrait of a family and the lengths we’ll go to protect our own. While the script scrapes toward the film’s end, their blazing, blistering stare, and wounded smile keep us tethered.

A significant amount of lived-in authenticity adds an extra layer of dread in even the calmest moments of Fancy Dance. These are real lives, ones touched by the inadequacy of and failures of a justice system. Gladstone stars as Jax, a woman who has cared for her niece, Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson), since her sister, Tawi, disappeared. While the Seneca-Cayuga community comes together to lead search parties for Tawi, the negligent law enforcement does little, demonstrating again the lack of care for missing Indigenous women.

That anger for missing and murdered Indigenous women permeates throughout Fancy Dance, as Jax and Roki, too, are threatened to have their lives ripped apart. When Jax loses custody of Roki to her father, Frank (Shea Whigham), she does everything she can to get Roki back and get her to the powwow, where Roki believes she’ll reunite with her mother. This is where the dread pours in because we know that no matter the good intent, Jax is working against a broken system run by white colonialism that spews toxins into their reservation. Law enforcement would instead take Roki away from Jax, her only known family, and place her with her white grandparents, then search for the Indigenous woman who raised her.

Throughout the story, as the two make their way to the powwow, there are moments of iridescent beauty. Tremblay’s direction captures natural beauty and lighting as Jax and Roki comb through nature, riding their bikes or walking home. The cinematography by Carolina Costa aids in capturing the depth and scope of their travels as we take in the immense countryside they drive along. Tremblay and Costa even find beauty in an inground pool in a lone backyard as Jax helps Roki celebrate her first period. Finding these pockets of beauty in a world so unceremoniously cruel to them helps dull the brutal bludgeon of reality.

Because when the law turns its eye on Jax for taking Roki, a sense of doom settles itself in the pit of our stomachs. Fancy Dance might end on a note of celebration and shared grief as Jax and Roki dance at the powwow, but there’s an air of ambiguous finality. Maybe a miracle will happen, but it’s doubtful. The scene, however, is luminous; the camera is stationed mid-crowd, and the movement of the attendees is captured with shaky hands to help immerse us entirely in the moment.

Newcomer Isabel Deroy-Olson delivers a natural performance as Roki, a girl just starting to grasp the gravity of what’s happening around her and her mother’s disappearance. She and Gladstone share a familial, comfortable chemistry that helps suggest the time spent together, even if we only get a snapshot of it. But it’s Gladstone who truly is the film’s shining light, able to convey so much with subtle expressions, Jax’s heavy heartache evident through wearily shut eyes and the slump of their shoulders. The camera loves Gladstone, often pulled in close in tight shots to better convey the tumultuous, emotional journey the character is going through.

However, the film loses its way through the script, especially in the third act. Logical, reasonable characters begin making hasty, illogical decisions for the sake of plot convenience and to make the story move. It’s frustrating because it becomes rushed as we reach the home stretch, and the narrative decisions become increasingly untethered to the reality in which the film initially seeps itself. It’s a clash of tones that unnecessarily ramps up the tension in a film that’s already established a tone of world-weariness.

That said, Fancy Dance has enough goodwill by this point, and Gladstone is such a tremendous performer that it doesn’t diminish the overall effect too much. Fancy Dance succeeds through its introspection and the soulful performance by Gladstone. If we weren’t already convinced that Gladstone is a star, Fancy Dance makes sure of it.

Fancy Dance is out now in limited theaters before appearing on Apple TV+ on June 28.