If you can only see one Lily Gladstone film this year, you now have two choices if someone hurries up and distributes this one.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Since 1992 Indianapolis has held its own celebration of cinema with the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater marathon every October of documentaries, shorts, narrative features, and animated works made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience, usually with an emphasis on uplift and positivity. Ever since the “International” modifier was added in recent years, their acquisition team steadily escalated their game as they’ve recruited higher-profile projects into their lineups. For years my wife Anne and I have talked about getting into the spirit of the festivities. This year we will do better. The festival’s 32nd edition will run October 5-15. I’ve committed to at least five different Heartland showings — one of them virtual in-home, while the others will screen at four different theaters throughout central Indiana…

Erica Tremblay’s name rang a bell when I saw it on Heartland’s website: she’s served as Executive Story Editor for AMC’s Dark Winds (based on Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee novels) and Sterlin Harjo’s Reservation Dogs, and wrote one of the latter’s funniest episodes, “Decolonativization”. One of those shows is great so far; the other is among Best TV Ever and deserves its own MCC entry sometime. Hopefully they lead the way for more Native/indigenous stories to be told across screens great and small. She’s now directed her first feature film, Fancy Dance, which she also produced and co-wrote (with Miciana Alise) and which opened at Sundance earlier this year. Heartland’s artistic director who introduced our showing mentioned Tremblay has had several shorts previously at this festival. I’m kicking myself for having missed out, more so after watching her heartfelt, heartbreaking results here.

Tremblay teams up with a fantastic choice of leading lady — Lily Gladstone, star of the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon (alongside Scorsese’s two favorite A-Listers) and a two-time Reservation Dogs guest, including the series finale where her character (Daniel’s mom Hokti) had the honor of wrapping season three’s overarching theme into an edible bow with an inspired metaphor involving imitation Flamin Hot Cheetos. Here, Gladstone is an ex-con named Jax who’s looking after her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) in the absence of Jax’s sister/Roki’s mom Tawi, who’s been MIA for two weeks. The two of them are getting along fine on their Oklahoma reservation (like Rez Dogs!) and doing the best they can with their limited resources, which often means getting what they need through means not necessarily on the straight-and-narrow (like Rez Dogs season 1!).

But next week is The Big Powwow. Roki and her mom always dance together at The Big Powwow. They craft their own regalia and everything. It’s more than a happy community festival — their dance is a deep bonding ritual, possibly their most meaningful mother/daughter experience every year, judging by how emotional Roki gets about it. Tawi’s likewise no saint and has gone AWOL for stretches before, but she never misses The Big Powwow. Local authorities seem too distracted or powerless to look for her, and federal authorities who should be assisting with missing-persons cases on the rez can’t be bothered. Certain local authorities do suddenly find the wherewithal to step in when they decide Jax doesn’t qualify to act as temp guardian. They threaten to place Roki with relatives she barely knows — white relatives at that, who totally don’t get The Big Powwow. (Their family tree is realistically knotty.)

Jax cannot let this stand. She reckons they need to find Tawi before next weekend, and/or Roki needs to be rescued from the clutches of well-meaning blood-related strangers. Solving either problem will make the other moot. Their allies are few, their clues are fewer, and their problem-solving skills have weak points. They keep moving moment-to-moment, rarely foreseeing consequences and, more often than not, making matters worse. I felt echoes of Winter’s Bone and The Legend of Billie Jean throughout, plus no more than a pinch of Thelma and Louise as Jax and Roki hit the road to do something about any of this.

The aunt/niece dynamic is the convincing heart of the film, but they have their vulnerabilities and no guarantee of a safe ending. The audience may root for them to find any glimmer of hope even while we wince at their choices. Fancy Dance is by no means a suspense thriller, closer to a tragedy with light crime-drama tendencies. As much as I keep gratuitously name-checking Rez Dogs, laughs are few and far between. It’s mercy on Tremblay’s part that she leaves us on a high note of sorts, cutting to black so we don’t have to watch what happens to their hardscrabble family next.

…

Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Dark Winds player Ryan Begay (Leaphorn’s ex-friend Guy Atcitty) is the one tribal policeman around and the half-brother of Jax and Tawi. At first he’s a concerned figurehead beholden to higher white powers, but later he gets to show us his skills.

The well-intentioned outsider grandparents who’re about to ruin everything are played by ubiquitous character actor Shea Whigham (last seen chasing Tom Cruise in MI:7) and voice actress Audrey Wasilewski (Showtime’s Big Love, Fallout 3, Garfield‘s cat-girlfriend Arlene). Wasilewski’s step-grandma is the most cringe-inducing, as when she tries to connect with Roki by offering her ballet lessons…because, like, isn’t all dancing basically the same thing?

Tamara Podemski (Rez Dogs‘ prodigal auntie Teenie) has a scene or two as a glowering person of interest who doesn’t suffer fools, and who’d probably shoot Teenie on sight. Ryan RedCorn (last seen on Rez Dogs weirding out Cheese on that bus trip home from California) shows up as the emcee at The Big Powwow. Cory Hart (Queen of the South, Fear the Walking Dead) has one scene as an ICE Agent who seems intimidating but whose duties and databases are very narrow in scope.

How about those end credits? No, there’s no scene after the Fancy Dance end credits, but they do confirm an Intimacy Coordinator was on set for the one (1) scene of special hugging, which is TV-14, mostly clothed, and ten seconds at most. And the Special Thanks section includes among its ranks Rez Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo.

…

Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

• Jailhouse to Milhouse
• The Promised Land
• Monster
• A Disturbance in the Force
• Avenue of the Giants