The Michigan Daily loves to watch and talk about films at the cutting edge of storytelling and there is no place better to do so than the Sundance Film Festival. After a two-year in-person hiatus, writers and editors for the Film Beat have trudged through the snow on planes, trains and automobiles to arrive at Park City, Utah. Our coverage will include the premiers of dramas, romances, documentaries and everything in between. Welcome to our discussion on films made with Oscar winners and first-time filmmakers alike.
At the beginning of Erica Tremblay’s (“Little Chief”) “Fancy Dance,” Jax (Lily Gladstone, “Certain Women”) and her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson, “Three Pines”) steal a car. It is the calmest auto theft I have ever seen. Roki takes the keys while their owner fishes and Jax distracts him by washing her shoulders across the river. The water sparkles. The sun is bright and lazy.
But with this sunny, low-effort theft, Tremblay begins a masterful escalation of tension. Jax’s sister (Roki’s mother) has been missing for several weeks; if they don’t find her, child protective services will permanently take Roki away from Jax and their home at the Seneca-Cayuga reservation to stay with her semi-estranged grandparents. For a film centering on the injustice of the so-called “justice system” and a search that takes aunt and niece into dangerous places with hostile people, it remains relatively calm and quiet, even when the characters’ worlds are breaking.
Rather than diminish the film’s power, this quietness allows the film to be personal. The character dynamics are prioritized over shocking the audience — while danger and injustice are ever present, violence is only implied. When a character is found dead, we don’t see her body, only witness the phone calls to her family. Without the distraction of horrifying images, the viewer notices what they otherwise wouldn’t: the development of Jax and Roki’s relationship, Roki’s coming of age and Jax’s internal wrestling with her role as a caretaker.
Gladstone’s performance is stunning, internal and personal. With few words, we see her love for Roki, sadness and buried anger when the people meant to help her — the police and child protective services — don’t care about finding her sister and want to take Roki away. With Tremblay’s gentle touch, the film steps back and lets Jax’s actions speak for themselves, pulling the viewer close to her until we tap into the film’s emotion. That’s when the film grabs them, takes control and wraps them in its arms so it can break their heart.
The film ends on a note of joy shrouded with imminent destruction and heartbreak. Once again, Tremblay avoids showing us something truly violent and terrible, instead only implying what is to come; the camera focuses on a scene of the family and happiness that Jax and Roki have fought for. The colorful lighting, reminiscent of lighting under a street lamp, and movement as they dance in this final scene convey the film’s heart, the bond between them. For a moment, we turn our eyes away from themes of injustice and toward those of family.
“Fancy Dance” doesn’t let you return to reality and leave it behind. That final scene doesn’t stay in the theater. It works its way like a thorn into your heart. When the characters’ world is in peril, it is heartbreaking. I cried in the theater and walked out in a daze. As I walked across the parking lot, I reflexively put in my AirPods, ready to move on with my day.
I walked for five minutes in silence, unable to choose a song. There was nothing I could listen to. I tried to convince myself to pick one, maybe a happy song so I could pull myself out of the heartbreak. But the film remained with me, and I didn’t want to stop feeling it, to stop thinking about it, to let this movie go. I took out my AirPods and put them away.
Senior Arts Editor Erin Evans can be reached at erinev@umich.edu.