Good intentions pave the way to Message Movie Limbo. Heartfelt and sometimes trenchant, DANCE ME OUTSIDE is a rare coming-of-age film celebrating Native American culture, too bland in visual technique and overstated in its writing to score.
Although the perimeters of their Kidabanessee Reservation are narrowly defined by years of White American oppression, teens Silas Crow (Ryan Black) and Frank Fencepost (Adam Beach) look forward to admittance to a mechanics' school. Concerned about getting trapped in the usual early marriage cycle,
Sila's girlfriend Sadie (Jennifer Podemski) calls a halt to their relationship so she can devote herself to Indian activism. Meanwhile her sister Illiana (Lisa Lacroix) visits from the big city with her infertile Caucasian hubby Robert (Kevin Hicks), a lawyer who receives a joshing reception from
his new in-laws. Tension mounts when Illiana's ex-lover Gooch (Michael Greyeyes) is released from jail and can't relinquish hopes of reconciling with her.
Then a friend, Little Margaret (Tamara Podemski) is slain by drugged-up white racist Clarence (Hugh Dillon), whose crime nets him only a manslaughter sentence. This slap on the wrist galvanizes many of the tribe into plans for revenge. In conjunction with a medicine woman, Silas arranges for
Illiana's one-night reunion with Gooch so that their mother can have a grandchild. Although Silas and his buddies keep Robert occupied with fake rituals, the outsider-initiate gains their respect before the night is over. When skinhead Clarence is finally released, the Indian teens plan to execute
him, but are thwarted by their women-folk. Silas and Frank don't carry out vigilante vengeance, but Gooch is suspected when Clarence is found with a slashed throat. Avoiding suspicion, Sadie and Poppy (Sandrine Holt) avenged Little Margaret's slaying and are never charged. Frank and Silas both get
accepted into technical school, which will provide them with a way out of the tribal abyss of poverty.
From the start DANCE ME OUTSIDE is devalued by an over-explicit narration that does more harm than good, the type of omniscient voice that always works better in novels (in this case, W.P. Kinsella's source anthology). Though Silas's off-camera thoughts flavor the film with a native authenticity,
they stolidly deliver dramatic information that the director could have better provided visually. In general the mise en scene is undistinguished, with individual scenes standing out solely due to their high-pitched emoting. No thread of connective tension causes these cathartic moments to build
and swell, however.
Furthermore, although one understands the Indians' bitter payback plan for Clarence, the screenwriter evinces a stridently moralistic stance that assumes viewers must root for blood or be branded racist. Also irksome is the treatment of Illiana's heart-on-his-sleeve husband Robert by the tribal
teens. Their comical humiliation of him says less about misguided Whites attempting to fit in than it does about their own biases. The film doesn't condemn their cruelty as it does the Caucasian contingent who needle Silas's crowd with Tonto jokes, sacrificing honesty to political correctness.
The film never draws us deeply into its characters' interior lives. Their unique longings are filtered through a soap-opera sensibility, and the cliches of melodrama seem even flimsier against the worthy ethnic backdrop. (Extreme profanity, violence, substance abuse, sexual situations, adult
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