Two reviews in one! Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Daddio review says the taxi cab-based film is a strange trip, while her Fancy Dance review says the Apple TV+ movie steps up.

Fancy  Dance Review

Fancy Dance is a haunting indie that only Native American writer/director/producer Erica Tremblay could tell, and only Native American actress Lily Gladstone, Oscar nominated for Killers of the Flower Moon, could bring to life, with such quiet force and emotion.

The gutsy indie focuses on the heartbreak experienced by Indigenous women as they deal with a justice system that constantly fails them.

Gladstone plays Jax, who is scraping by on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation, and is desperately searching for her sister, who has gone missing without a trace. Jax is also doing her best to care for her sister’s 13-year-old daughter Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson), who is also distraught over her mother’s disappearance.

Jax and Roki are focused on preparing for the upcoming powwow, where they are sure the missing sister will turn up. But the authorities, and well-meaning non-Indigenous relatives, thwart them at every turn.

Gladstone gives a stoic but harrowing performance, and took me right along with her on her frustrating and seemingly hopeless journey.

Ultimately, I found myself weeping big alligator tears—the very definition of an ugly cry. I was glad no one was around to see. I’m not going to tell you whether they were tears of joy or sorrow, but I will tell you I was glad I shed them.

Rated R

1 Hour 32 Minutes

If this Fancy Dance review encourages you to see it, find it on Apple TV+

Daddio Review

You can’t help but be curious about Daddio, given the notoriety of the two stars: Golden Globe winner Dakota Johnson (Persuasion, Madame Web, Bad Times at the El Royale, the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy); and  two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, (Milk, Mystic River, 21 Grams, Dead Man Walking).

But if you’re like me, being curious about a film and spending my hard earned money and leisure time on a film are two different things. Perhaps I can sate some of your curiosity so you’ll feel more comfortable about your decision to go or not to go to see it.

Johnson plays a young woman in her ’20’s, returning home to New York after spending time with family in Oklahoma. She jumps in a cab at the airport and the driver turns out to be an interesting and curious guy played by Penn.

On the way to her apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, the two bond over a startlingly frank and gritty conversation about life and relationships, love and happiness, pleasure and pain.

Meanwhile Johnson, whose character’s name we never get but is referred to as “Girlie,”  has an excruciatingly creepy text conversation with someone you pray is not her boyfriend.

The film is almost entirely made up of two people talking in a cab, with the exception of reading texts on Girly’s cellphone screen, a device that drives me nuts. With all the potential motion pictures have to offer, writer/director Christie Hall opts to tell the story via text?

Now if anyone can carry a film like this, it’s Penn. And Johnson is just good enough in her role.

Also on the plus side, there is a nice surprise and some emotional pay-off in the end.

I’m just not sure most viewers will want to spend an hour and forty minutes with a couple of talking heads discussing cringe-worthy intimate details of their lives. Up to you.

Rated R

1 Hour 41 Minutes

If this Daddio review encourages you to drive over to the cineplex and see the film, get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

Two reviews in one! Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Daddio review says the taxi cab-based film is a strange trip, while her Fancy Dance review says the Apple TV+ movie steps up.