She Dances
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes
Stars: Steve Zahn, Audrey Zahn, Ethan Hawke, Rosemarie DeWitt
Writers: Rick Gomez, Steve Zahn
Director: Rick Gomez
Sweet and poignant and funny and thoughtful, She Dances traipses along, lighter than air, dispensing knowing chuckles and satisfied sighs while exploring the fraught dynamics of a father-daughter road trip.
Jason (the always-endearing Steve Zahn) is a depressed dad whose marriage has been shattered by a family tragedy. Still cautiously friendly with his estranged wife (Little Fires Everywhere’s Rosemarie DeWitt), Jason is nevertheless barely in the same emotional universe with his 17-year-old daughter, Claire (Audrey Zahn, Steve Zahn’s real-life daughter in her miraculously nuanced film debut).
Claire is a top-tier competitive dancer, about to head off to college, with one last competition in a distant city before she graduates high school. Mom usually serves as her chaperone on these trips, but this time she can’t make it, and so Dad is pressed – hyper-reluctantly – into service.
Jason could plausibly bow out of the trip: He is in the middle of negotiations to sell the distillery he founded with his closest friend, Brian (recent Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke in a small but lovely performance). But Brian insists Jason take advantage of what may be his last chance to bond with Claire. Besides, Brian says of the prospective buyers, “They like me better than they like you.”
On the road come the expected complications (a flat tire, a restaurant argument, generational playlist conflicts). The hotel reservation is predictably muffed by dad (and patiently explained by the desk clerk, played in a delightful uncredited cameo by Office Space veteran Ron Livingston). An onstage setback for Claire results in – what else? – a triumphant change of plans. In fact, I can’t think of a single narrative surprise that unfolds in the script, by first-time feature co-writers Steve Zahn and Rick Gomez (who also directs with loose-limbed appeal).
That’s not a criticism. She Dances is a warm blanket of a movie, following the heartening trajectory of a parent and almost-grown child rediscovering the things they love about each other – and maybe inspiring some of us to take up that dance ourselves.
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