Hard to not feel a little disappointed? Some wonderful, humanising touches, but overall it veered too widely between different emotional polarities. Some examples: the almost cartoonishly 'bad' stepmom and ICE agent, as well as the completely unnecessary handgun, which, of course, goes off in the third act like a kind of "Choctaw's Gun". Without Lily Gladstone, I fear this would border on the embarrassingly earnest. It might also have been a more enigmatic (and more realistic) screenplay if they never actually actually found the sister.
As she did in Killers of the Flower Moon, Gladstone walks a tightrope between her character’s desperate denial of a nearly certain outcome and a numb, post-traumatic acceptance of the likely truth.
— Jake Cole (Slant Magazine)
[With] Tremblay and Miciana Alise’s writing style can come inelegance—when their dialogue breaks free from realism and pushes into more figuratively laced conversations, like when colonization takes form as a pair of ballet flats and dance lessons attempt to usurp the tribe’s traditions—and stiltedness.
— Jacob Oller (Paste Magazine)
The same FBI that made its good name off of the murders of Osage people no longer cares to undo the harm caused by racism and greed.
— Jourdain Searles (RogerEbert.com)
Synopsis: Following her sister's disappearance, Jax and her niece Roki must stick together. Desperate to keep what's left of their family intact, Jax and Roki defy the law and hit the road on a journey to the Grand Nation Powwow in Oklahoma City.