Fancy Dance

Available on TV+

Erica Tremblay’s powerful feature debut is perhaps best characterised by the way it balances the tender relationship between an aunt and her niece with the harsh realities that many Native Americans have to contend with on a daily basis.

Co-written with Miciana Alise, Tremblay’s film sees Lily Gladstone follow her show-stealing performance in Killers of the Flower Moon with another powerful turn as Jax, a near destitute woman who, along with caring for her aforementioned relative, is desperate to find her missing sister. However, to do so she must contend with the state’s deep-seated apathy towards the wellbeing of reservation residents, a theme that is apparent throughout the film’s duration.

Jax’s world is upended further when unrepentant authorities decide to place her niece (Isabel DeRoy-Olson) into the custody of her estranged father (Shea Whigham), a decision which sets into motion a sequence of events that provide the basis for Fancy Dance’s narrative. What ensues is a tender, thought-provoking story that is every bit as charming as it is desperately sad, one which cements Gladstone as one of cinema’s foremost performers while also announcing DeRoy-Olson as a prodigy worth keeping an eye out for.

Much like Killers of the Flower Moon, Fancy Dance also shines a light on the injustices that the Native American people have had to endure for centuries, a wrong that remains a stain on the moral fabric of the United States.