‘Frybread Face and Me’ Review: Indigenous Filmmaker Bill Luther’s Achy, Amusing Tale of Exile and Discovery
variety.comLisa Kennedy In “Frybread Face and Me,” Benny Lovell might be a few years away from the edge of 17, but the 12-year-old Indian kid has a passion for Fleetwood Mac.
It’s his fondness for the band, its witchy vocalist Stevie Nicks as well as for dolls (“action figures,” he corrects) that has his parents sending him from San Diego to his maternal grandmother on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona.
But before he gets on the bus headed east, adult Benny in voice-over offers a caveat: “If you think no one does dysfunction like Fleetwood Mac, then you haven’t met my family.” It’s 1990 and a summer that initially smacks of exile and punishment becomes one of discovery — self-discovery to be sure, but also cultural and familial.
Keir Tallman stars as Benny, the “Me” of writer-director Billy Luther’s warm debut narrative feature. Luther, of the Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo Laguna nations, has made feature documentaries. “Frybread Face and Me” — which premiered at SXSW — is his affable and insightful foray into fiction storytelling.
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