The Business of Fancydancing

The Business of Fancydancing is a compelling human drama written and directed with signature flamboyance by Sherman Alexie. Released in 2002, the film delicately probes into the intricacies and conflicts of ethnic and sexual identity. Studded with a cast of impressive actors like Evan Adams, Michelle St. John, and Gene Tagaban, the film wields a profound exploration into a collection of themes, including homecoming, assimilation, cultural identity, and the nature of friendship.

The plot focuses on Seymour Polatkin, portrayed with an absorbing mix of vulnerability and cynicism by Evan Adams, a successful gay Native American poet living in Seattle. Seymour's fruitful literary career is built largely from writing about his experiences growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. When his best friend Mouse, portrayed with heart-rending emotion by Swil Kanim, dies, Seymour is forced to confront his past as he returns to the reservation for the funeral, a place he left two decades ago.

What follows is a thought-provoking look into the delicately-balanced universe of cultural identity. Seymour finds himself in the crosshairs of traditional Native American values, the community's perception of his sexual orientation, and his fraught relationships with his ex-lover Aristotle, who is portrayed with rugged intensity by Gene Tagaban, and Agnes Roth, a fellow poet portrayed by Michelle St. John. Along with these, the film also showcases the dichotomy between his largely white, middle-class readers and the working-class, reservation-dwelling Native Americans he's been claiming to represent through his works.

The Business of Fancydancing is enveloped in a recurrent theme of battling allegiances, which Sherman Alexie handles with such sensitivity and deftness that it demands your attention. We see Seymour struggle internally, his identity as a Spokane native at odds with his reformed cosmopolitan self.

Evan Adam's portrayal of Seymour is profound and deeply moving, giving us the image of a man torn between his past and present, his roots, and the life he has built away from them. His interactions with Michelle St. John, who portrays Agnes Roth, an adopted Korean woman raised by a Jewish couple who considers herself a "real Indian," illustrates the complexity of identity and roots in Alexie's writing.

Gene Tagaban brings the character of Aristotle to life with his skillful performance. Aristotle is a character struggling with his own demons, one who has been betrayed by Seymour in the past. The tension between the two is palpable and creates a stirring spectacle for the viewers.

Sherman Alexie, revered for his literary short stories and novels exploring contemporary Native American life, brings the same lyrical prose and culturally rich narrative to his first full-length feature film. He effectively weaves in and out of time, exploring Seymour's childhood on the reservation, his journey to establish his independent life, and the emotional turbulence that clouds his return home.

The film's title, The Business of Fancydancing, implies showy, financially-driven exploitation, pointing towards Seymour's use of his Native American heritage and personal bouts to carve a successful literary career. The fancydancing, a traditional form of Native American dance, is also a metaphor, illustrating Seymour's intricate dance between two cultures, Native American and Western, that he must perform.

Aside from its robust storytelling, The Business of Fancydancing is also noted for its alluring cinematography, which effectively captures the nuanced moods present in the characters' lives, especially the magnificent reservation landscapes which encapsulate the film with aesthetic precision.

In all, The Business of Fancydancing is a bold, heartfelt, and poignant dramatization of the struggles of identity, cultural assimilation, and bridging the gap between one's past and present. It is a thought-provoking examination of the human condition, made even more intriguing due to its setting within Native American culture. Its disturbingly accurate portrayal of internal and external conflicts challenges stereotypes, thus making it a film that demands to be seen and pondered over.