Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I'm probably not in the right demographic for this movie. Although I am gay, I am not an American Indian, and this movie depends heavily on an appreciation of their culture, their history and (if this movie is at all authentic) their overwhelming love of melodrama.Not a single word in the very stilted and contrived screenplay sounded to me like an actual human being talking, but like a person reading a proclamation about something very profound. The many poetry readings, funeral speeches, etc - even ordinary conversations between lovers and friends - sound so forced and pretentious that they're nearly unbearable. That's probably because the movie was written by a poet about himself. When the same poet also directs the movie, the combination practically guarantees a mediocre result.Very, very few successful movies are written and directed by people whose subject is their own lives and whose primary interest is in poetry rather than in movie-making. In fact, I can't think of a single one.If Sherman Alexie had allowed someone else to write and direct his story, it might have worked very well, because it's not an uninteresting story - but this movie doesn't work at all, not for me. It's too unnatural, and Native Americans ought to be MORE natural than the rest of us, not less.If you have a soft spot for overblown melodrama, stilted dialog, declamatory acting and/or Native Americans, then The Business of Fancydancing may be just right for you. But if you're looking for a good movie, keep looking.

The summary line pretty much says it all. "Indian humor" is a little hard to understand, although _I_ personally think it is easier to relate to than a lot of British humor is. But if you just don't get it, or just don't like it, it would probably be more fair to reflect on whether it is because the film is bad, or because your understanding of the American Indians and their place in a world turned upside down, is, well, inadequate. Further, in a world and (in the United States, at least) a society that presumes heterosexuality, few people, even among gay people, can really relate to and understand what it means to truly be non-heterosexual in the modern world. Sherman Alexie shows a special ability to understand and relate to how people can be inherently members of such minorities. The film is entertaining and laughable. Evan Adams is amazing in the role of Seymour Polatkin. I HIGHLY recommend you read Alexie's work.

While we as a country are discovering/acknowledging the struggles of the different sects within the Middle East, tribal differences that are longstanding and divisive and painful, along comes another sensitive story about Native Americans in this country and how the scars of past and ongoing abuses of our 'reservation resolution' have affected the original peoples of this land. Sherman Alexie, a fine poet and novelist, has transformed his written works into a film that showers the viewer with insights into a problem about which few are cognizant - intratribal differences that provide schisms within the only root that binds.Seymour Poltakin (the very talented Evan Adams) is a famous poet who happens to be both Native American and gay. He is called back to his Reservation in Spokane, Washington for the funeral of his childhood friend Mouse (Swil Kanim) only to confront all of the reasons he has left the Reservation for the 'white man's world' where he has found both financial and emotional success. Seymour's best friend Aristotle (Gene Tagaban) had originally left the Reservation to go to college with Seymour, but quickly soured to the prejudiced outside world and returned to his Reservation and to an unfortunate life of alcoholism and drug abuse. The bulk of the storyline revolves around how these two once devoted friends parted ways, the philosophies of each are explored, and though Seymour finds moments of love in his home space, he is still content to return to his white man lover and his life he has chosen.There are many very tender and moving moments in this film: when Seymour is in conversation with Agnes (Michelle St. John) and when Agnes intones the Indian chants and songs at the funeral; Seymour's dialogues with his lover; scenes of quiet while Aristotle abuses himself with drugs; the weaving in and out of the beautiful dancing that flows through the film. The problem with the movie is the disparity of approaches in telling the story: an interview situation between Rebecca Carroll and Evan Adams is well written but breaks the mood of the poetic form of the story. The film is obviously low budget and in this case, for this viewer, the rough hand-held camera technique adds a quality of reality to what we are watching.The overall effect at the end of the film is a pang of pain in the heart having witnessed the generations of 'isolation' and the segregation of the Native Americans into spaces both geographical and sociological that have undermined a tremendously valuable asset to our history. That role of shame is one that will never leave us, and it is a gift that artists like Sherman Alexie can bring this to the public's attention. Recommended. Grady Harp

I saw this at the Portland International Film Festival on Feb. 10, 2002. Writer-director Alexie said they were still tinkering with it and might add in some scenes we did not see.The "plot" is fairly sketchy. Seymour Polatkin, a young and successful gay poet who left the Spokane Reservation to go to college and settle in Seattle, returns to the res for the funeral of a close friend, a violinist named "Mouse" who committed suicide. Also present are their childhood buddy Aristotle Joseph (the rather stereotypical "fierce Indian") and Agnes, a half-Indian, half-Jewish woman with whom Seymour had a passionate college affair before accepting his homosexuality, who has returned to the res to teach.Alexie regulars Cynthia Geary and Elaine Miles, familiar from "Northern Exposure" and Alexie's last film project, "Smoke Signals," are on hand in cameos.The movie is a sort of collage, with many flashbacks, scenes of various characters dancing in colorful costumes on a black stage, and cheap video footage the characters ostensibly shot of each other. The acting is mostly okay, though rarely inspired; the writing much the same. Camerawork is rather dull, though Alexie chooses lovely landscapes, moods, and colors for his shots.A narrative trick of questionable utility is "The Interviewer": a young black female journalist pinions several of the characters (particularly Seymour and Aristotle) with tough, condescending, and sometimes obvious questions in that same no-space of black stage. The writing for these scenes is decent, but I wasn't convinced of the need for them.Alexie readily admits to doing much improvisation and gutwork -- the film was shot in 14 days with 6 additional days of fill-in shooting -- and he likes to leave plenty of questions unanswered, from the Russian origins of his protagonist's name to the meaning of the dancing sequences, the reasons for Mouse's suicide, or a rather brutal scene where Ari beats up a stranded white motorist and insists Mouse join him. This is fine, and I had no problem with most of it; in fact, it was the more obvious imagery, such as Seymour slowly and dispiritedly doffing his dance outfit toward the end of the story when he leaves the res again, presumably forever, that I found irritating.Alexie said he was extremely annoyed by such films as "Finding Forrester," where a writer's talents (both the veteran's and the rookie's) are ballyhooed but never actually shown, so Seymour reads a number of his poems on the soundtrack over the visual action.In sum, this is a fair, promising independent feature that is hardly outstanding but takes some laudable risks and provides further welcome exposure to Native American culture, actors, and ideas.