Frybread Face and Me

We often talk about making films that attempt to find the universal in the local. In the particularity of the Native American experience in Frybread lies the ubiquity of a larger human truth that keeps on echoing in the mind long after the film is over.

Luther’s film may be built on his own coming of age, but there’s both specificity and universality to this story, something for everyone who was ever a kid, Native or not, to connect with.

The movie is overfamiliar and earnest, but you can’t accuse it of not being heartfelt.

But what director Billy Luther does in Frybread Face and Me goes beyond the apparent "city mouse" tropes to turn into something fresh and quietly moving.