Drunktown's Finest

'DRUNKTOWN'S FINEST': Three Stars (Out of Five)

Low budget indie drama flick about three troubled Native American youths, living on an Indian reservation, who struggle to build new lives for themselves. The film was written and directed by first time feature filmmaker Sydney Freeland and stars a trio of newcomers; Jeremiah Bitsui, Carmen Moore and Morningstar Angeline. The movie premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was later picked up, for release, by the Sundance Film Channel. I found it's mini budget to be very showing at times but I also found the film to be a well-intentioned, and somewhat insightful, character study.

The story revolves around three very different young Native Americans, all living on the same Indian reservation. Sickboy (Bitsui) is a young father-to-be, who's had a decent amount of trouble with the law and excessive alcohol consumption. He's joining the military so he can provide for his family, through an honest living for once. Felixia (Moore) is a transvestite who makes a living selling his body. He desperately wants to leave town and start a modeling career. Nizhoni (Angeline) is an adopted Christian girl, who spends most of her time doing community service and wants nothing more than to learn who her real parents are.

The movie obviously has a lot of heart and seems to be a realistic telling of what life is like for troubled youths, living with a scarce amount of resources, on an Indian reservation. If the filmmaker (Freeland) had more resources himself, I'm sure this could have been a much better movie. As it is, the acting is very weak, sometimes painfully bad, and the script could have used at least a few more rewrites. It's hard not to be at least somewhat impressed with the good intentions of Freeland and the cast and crew, though.

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We contributed to a Kickstarter campaign to help get this movie finished, so last week a DVD of it came in the mail. We were very pleasantly surprised. Three intertwining stories of young people coming of age, nicely handled. The thing that struck me so strongly is that the characters are so American and so Navajo at the same time. They are finding their places as adults, and also along the continuum of acculturation.

Although alcohol plays a pretty big part in this movie, I dislike the title, which belongs to a much grittier and more knowing movie. While bad things are done by and to the characters, the overall mood is almost sweet.

At certain points it seem the movie was trying too hard to prove that Navajos are just like everyone else, but I liked that. You rarely see movies about Native Americans just living their lives day to day. It's mostly their culture being exploited and over- exaggerated to give it the same myth and legend of the Greek Gods or something.

The movie tells three stories of three different Navajos. A street kid who joins uncle Sam's army to help his growing family, financial, but is struggling to stay off the streets. A beautiful tyranny attempting a modeling career, and a adapted Navajo trying to over come the fear of what her parents told her about her own people in order to find her birth parents.

What I love most about this movie was that it was so down to Earth. I feel I got the best portrait of this culture, that I've never seen in any other movie.

We all of the same story, but we all tell it different. absolutely recommend.

I found DRUNKTOWNS FINEST DVD at the Window Rock flea market and purchased it from Ms. Freeland. I was impressed by the involvement of Robert Redford as the executive producer. I didn't know what to expect and asked Ms. Freeland if this was another genre type of movie about modern Navajos, e.g. TURQUOISE ROSE. After watching the opening of DF movie I found it to be what I expected. What the movie doesn't touch on is the violence and death experienced by young Navajo transgender male and/or females. There are many unsolved beatings and murders of transgender male/females on the Navajo rez and in the border towns and it seems like no one cares to follow up. In closing, it's not your average genre type of movie about modern Navajos.

"Drunktown's Finest" is a film that just recently debuted at Sundance and will soon have a wider release. It's by a new director, Sydney Freeland, and it's an amazing debut effort--mostly because the emphasis is on the acting! It seems that the executive producer, Robert Redford, made an excellent choice in having Freeland helm this story.

The film is set on a Navajo reservation. Although Ms. Freeland's biography on IMDb is scant, I did some research and found out that she actually grew up on one of these reservations herself and that is why this story seems so personal and unlike any other film I've seen on Native Americans. "Drunktown's Finest" consists of a story about three people who are struggling with their identity and their stories eventually intertwine during the course of the film.

There is a young lady who has grown up off the reservation, as she was adopted at a young age and was brought up on the other side of the country by white parents. She is struggling to reconcile her adoptive parents religion and values with her own biology and a need to learn more about her people. Another is a very angry and self- destructive young man who plans on joining the military as his way off the reservation and to a more stable life. The last is the most unusual, as it's about someone who is transgender and leads a very promiscuous and directionless life. It's also unusual because the filmmakers were actually able to find an actual transgender Navajo (Carmen Moore) to act this part.

The film is very unusual in that it manages to tell a compelling story because the focus is on the acting and the characters. Freeland does an excellent job of allowing these actors to act and not embellish the tale with special effects, wild plot devices and the like. It's all about the acting in this film. It's also important that it really doesn't matter much what you think about LGBT issues, American Indian culture or any of the issues brought up in this film. Sure I didn't like or necessarily agree with everything I saw in the film but the movie did NOT attempt to preach at the audience or give you the answers. Some might dislike this vagueness as well as the ending where everything isn't tied up neatly into a nice little package. I see it as just an opportunity to expose you to another way of life and a people who are most likely different from the people in your own life. This is a story that is never dull and I really look forward to seeing more from these folks.