Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

jm10701 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.

George Johnson (leengeo) I was impressed with "The Business of Fancydancing. " I thought it was very well made, with beautiful cinematography, excellent development of several believable key characters and a sensitive treatment of a tragic but important personal story with profound socal implications. The movie was complemented with a wonderful soundtrack and the juxtaposition of conflicting styles of music that helped to tell this paradoxical story. The ending was particularly poignant and extremely well done. Certain plot subtleties and finely nuanced multi-layered scences were evident during my second viewing. It offered moments of exquisite irony and heartfelt soul-searching. It was an intelligent treatment of the interaction of several layers of delicate personal issues. I was deeply moved by this film.

mcguirejm This was my favorite of the 8 films I saw at the Florida Film Festival. It is a visually stunning film with strong emotional content. Poetic interludes punctuate the story and lend to the reality of the lead character (a poet). Behind it all, is an honesty and a truth that you do not find in the majority of films.

davidl-7 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.