Chicago Critics Film Festival 2024 Review: Dandelion
“Dandelion” is the kind of indie film that tends to get referred to as a gem. It’s a small story about the emotional reality and very real toll life can take on artists who devote themselves to their art without a safety net, the kind that tends to consist of industry contacts and/or inherited wealth. The latter can be far more wide-ranging than the usual implications of family money and the privileges thereof; there are also less discussed but no less arbitrary advantages, that of simply being born in a suitable and hospitable time and location.
Theresa, or Dandelion, as she names herself, has access to none of these, and all hail KiKi Layne for never allowing this woman to sink into the easy mires of a pitiable object. The fact that she’s as charismatic and musically talented as the woman she’s playing yet isn’t known for it is a whole commentary in itself, and the film is clearly benefiting from her own personal stakes in the role. Much like Dandelion, Layne also hails from Cincinnati, and likewise had to find the confidence to make the music she clearly loves.
Yet where Layne has broken out several times in the indie films “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “The Old Guard,” the central tragedy of Dandelion’s life has been a long slow stagnation. She once had the opportunity to tour and open for a big name, but when her mother Jean (longtime industry presence Melanie Nicholls-King) got sick, Theresa did what women tend to do - sacrificed her prospects to care for a loved one. Now almost forty, Dandelion has remained stuck in the hometown she finds as beautiful as it is stifling.
When she actually puts herself first for perhaps the first time in her life and spontaneously drives out to South Dakota for a gig, what looks like a bust becomes a life-changing event once she meets Casey (Thomas Doherty). Unlike the very white male country vibe at what is pretty much a motorcycle rally in a pre-“Cowboy Carter” world, Casey’s friend group is close-knit, welcoming, and diverse. They are also supportive and nurturing of Dandelion’s clear talent, and her and Casey’s connection is electric.
IFC Films
It’s difficult to really showcase the songwriting process on film, but Dandelion and Casey embody the kind of magical, sparkling creative partnerships that allow songs to be born, writing on each other’s arms when they get stuck, and transforming arguments into a glittering musical rapport. “A Star Is Born” this ain’t, with the resulting performances left off huge arena screens and built on word of mouth performances in dives, and further nurtured by the glorious kind of nature underused in film, which tends to focus on locations with reliable indie cred, such as the Pacific Northwest.
If writer-director Nicole Riegel seems like an unlikely helmer for such a tenderly bruising tale, she also found beauty in working class desperation in her 2020 feature debut “Holler,” and this latest was clearly a collaboration with her lead. If Layne isn’t in such dire straits as Jessica Barden’s Ruth, her fight is with the reality of an industry that sidelines and exploits its most talented artists even when it offers sincere help. Such is still the case that artists, especially when female, must make gold out of exploitation, and the film pulses so bittersweetly with the emotional reality of it all that sometimes the plot feels almost left behind at key moments. But such is the strength of the artists at the core of it all that we feel every beat when triumph is simply taking your heartbreak and rocking out to it.
Grade: A-
