Frybread Face and Me

Luther’s film may be built on his own coming of age, but there’s both specificity and universality to this story, something for everyone who was ever a kid, Native or not, to connect with.

The movie is overfamiliar and earnest, but you can’t accuse it of not being heartfelt.

[The] film’s gentle approach to storytelling ... and unhurried affect imbues small moments with outsized significance.

Gentle comfort is something the entire world is in need of these days, and “Frybread Face and Me” delivers that in abundance.

Writer/director Billy Luther's warm, tender, and funny debut "Frybread Face and Me," which was executive produced by Taika Waititi, explores the humor and joy in finding your footing with family and the strength that comes from embracing your heritage.

Watching this family interact is a reminder how rare it is to see so many American indigenous actors in a space, weaving the unique and universal into stories that expand our storehouse of their experience.

Fully and unabashedly immersed in the Diné culture from Benny’s semi-outsider perspective, this is a refreshing movie by definition, an effect that is only bolstered by the thoughtful, gentle rhythm at which it's told.

A sweet, downbeat and somewhat melancholy coming-of-age tale about a Navajo “city Indian” sent to spend the summer of 1990 in the reservation where his mother grew up.

It’s loaded with small, telling details, like a dinner of spam and potatoes served to Benny’s grandparents, rather than large story arcs. This is a film suited for long, hot summer days.

With the support of executive producer Taika Waititi, first-time feature writer and director Billy Luther’s semi-autobiographical, gentle coming-of-age story offers an understated, seldom seen slice of quotidian Native American life