An 11-year-old boy from San Diego goes to live with his Navajo grandmother and spends time with his cousin.
“Frybread Face and Me” is set in 1990, when its protagonist, Benny (Keir Tallman), reluctantly goes to live on a Navajo reservation with his maternal grandmother (Sarah H. Natani). Having grown up in San Diego, the 11-year-old Benny has more experience with action figures, SeaWorld visits and Fleetwood Mac tunes than with rug weaving, sheep herding and bull riding. Over the kind of indelible summer beloved by screenwriters, he will receive an introduction to all three.
It helps that Benny is quickly joined at his grandmother’s by a cousin of a similar age; she is widely known by the nickname Frybread Face (Charley Hogan). Fry acts as a translator with their grandmother (who has refused to learn English), teaches Benny a few Navajo concepts and even gives him a driving lesson. The cultural exchange goes both ways: Fry is enthused to learn that Benny can visit the orca Shamu at SeaWorld whenever he wants.
Some complexity is introduced through one of Benny’s uncles, Marvin (Martin Sensmeier), who cruelly needles Benny for not being enough of a man (and whose own toughness is called into question after he is hurt in a riding mishap).
But “Frybread Face and Me,” written and directed by Billy Luther, who has previously made documentaries and worked on AMC’s “Dark Winds,” declines, to its credit, to overplay that hand. It’s more interested in sharing on details so specific (a meal of Spam and potatoes; repeated viewings of a “Starman” videotape) they seem drawn from memory. The movie is overfamiliar and earnest, but you can’t accuse it of not being heartfelt.
Frybread Face and Me
Not rated. In English and Navajo, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Watch on Netflix and in theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
