Andrew Worsdale
Chris Eyre’s debut feature film deservedly won both the Audience Award and the film- makers’ trophy at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the leading celebration of American Independent film-making.
Based on the books The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, Smoke Signals is a winning mix of comedy and drama couched around a buddy/road movie narrative.
Victor Joseph and Thomas-Builds-The-Fire live on the Couer d’Alene Indian reservation in Idaho. Although not exactly bosom buddies, they have known each other since childhood. The pair journey to Phoenix to collect Victor’s father’s ashes. As they journey across the country, they teach each other about life’s homilies.
Eyre, who is of Cheyenne-Arapaho extraction, instills in the movie the right amount of homespun philosophy, comedy and tragedy without preaching about the plight and “oppression” of Native Americans.
It is the chemistry between the two lead characters that makes this movie a winner. Adam Beach as the cynical, pent-up Victor is all hunk – he believes Indians aren’t supposed to smile, that they have to be stoic. Thomas, in contrast, is a real motor-mouth with a twangy accent, who sports thick glasses, braids and a nerdy suit.
Endearing and never preachy about the problems facing its protagonists, this is a gem of oddball comic-melodrama. It is a smart, endearing and engrossing film that spans a perfect mix between popular and patrician. It is a pity it is only getting a limited art-house release because this is a movie that will please everyone.