KiKi Layne and thoughtful cinematography make Dandelion a cinematic tune worth listening to

KiKi Layne has such remarkably expressive eyes. Granted, maybe I'm biased in this regard. After all, I first saw Layne in 2018's Barry Jenkins feature If Beale Street Could Talk. This masterpiece involved those glorious close-ups of characters staring into the camera that Jenkins is so fond of. Even if that feature didn’t exist, though, Layne’s gift for communicating so much through a gaze or in the finer details of her eyes would still be awe-inspiring. Layne, like classic silent movie performers or great 1970s actors like John Cazale, doesn’t need words to convey instantly gripping vivid emotional urgency. Her gift thoughtfully anchors writer/director Nicole Riegel's latest motion picture Dandelion.

Singer/songwriter musician Dandelion (Layne) feels left behind in life. She's stuck living at home with her sickly mother and scraping any local performance gig she can get. Meanwhile, other artists she came up with are moving on to greater things. Desperate for a big break, Dandelion takes the advice of a friend and travels to a South Dakota gig. There, she connects with fellow musician Casey (Thomas Doherty). This man inhabits a band that’s grown big enough to tour, though they’re nowhere near the stature of The Beatles or Toad the Wet Sprocket. Many of these band members are perfectly content crooning tunes to one another near a campfire in a trailer park.

Dandelion and Casey initially bond over songwriting before things get more intimate. They sing together in back-alley performances for small audiences and venture across gorgeous South Dakota landscapes. Life opens up for Dandelion, a woman previously browbeaten from the nightmare of being an artist in a gig economy.

Movies set in autumn are rare. Most motion pictures would rather speed right in through to snow-covered Christmas mornings or ice-drenched New Year’s Eve parties rather than linger in September or October. However, the autumn cinema canon, namely Fantastic Mr. Fox, demonstrates the season's vivid visual possibilities. The orange and yellow hues of leaves at this time of year just look so pretty on-screen! Those colors and other background details like barren trees immediately instill a melancholy but hopeful ambiance into a feature. Everything is changing. One chapter is ending. Reminders that an unknown yet malleable future is imminent are inescapable.

Dandelion is another one of those rare autumn movies. Siegel and cinematographer Lauren Guiteras nicely exploit the distinctive visual opportunities of this season. Initially, the colder barren environments nicely accentuate Dandelion's frustration in her home life. Just as autumn winds down a year, so too are Dandelion’s opportunities to reach her dreams dwindling. Once she’s inhabiting more natural foliage-dominated realms, though, this season channels a radically different feeling. Beautiful autumn-specific colors, for instance, make for a perfect backdrop to Dandelion and Casey wandering the wilderness. There’s a coziness to these hues complimenting the intimacy our lead characters feel around each other.  

These exterior sequences particularly pop thanks to Dandelion's 16mm film camerawork. Autumn-specific colors burst onto the screen extra radiantly thanks to this detail. There's almost a dreamlike quality to how these South Dakota forests and canyons look on-screen filtered through 16mm film. That detail reinforces just how gloriously Dandelion and Casey feel in each other's company. Life feels like a dream when they're kissing or holding hands. Why shouldn't scenes capturing their intimacy have a similar quality?

It isn't just natural landscapes that benefit from Dandelion's specific cinematography choices, though. The grounded cities of Dandelion also look remarkably tangible captured on film. This is exemplified in a back alley Dandelion and Casey race through before and after an impromptu musical performance. This dingy locale wouldn’t resonate as run-down if captured through uber-polished digital means. These two characters primarily inhabit crusty locations loaded with squeaky floorboards, rusty locks, and decades-old tourist traps. Such locales benefit mightily from an equally old-fashioned cinematography style.

Dandelion’s smart visual impulses extend to sequences where the titular lead performs on-stage. Siegel and Guiteras intriguingly capture two of Dandelion’s performances (one of which is an especially vulnerable public appearance) from low angles. This type of framing usually conveys that a terrifying mob boss or a looming monster is a gigantic threat. Here, it captures a singer wielding no power. She's often just trying to get the crowd to listen to her! This seemingly dissonant visual detail quietly suggests the power inside Dandelion. She’s got the ability to be the star in any room. All she needs is an opportunity to prove that. Choosing those low-angle shots even in her most powerless experiences subtly encapsulates that persistent potential.

Inhabiting nearly all these vividly crafted shots is KiKi Layne. The every-person quality she brought to her captivating Beale Street work is alive and well in her Dandelion performance. Layne doesn’t deliver a caricatured simulacrum of a working-class musician. Instead, she relies on subtlety to carry the day. Just the movement of her fingers or the darting of her eyes communicates her growing feelings towards Casey, for example. She even persists as a gripping presence when she’s inhabiting gorgeous wide shots dominated by South Dakota vistas. An especially memorable shot in Dandelion’s third act concerns Dandelion strolling through a field when the sun is almost entirely set. That unforgettable image perfectly encapsulates Layne's consistently engrossing aura. The lighting and natural environment here are stunning. Yet Layne’s quietly displaying Dandelion finding solace without any other human beings in sight transfixes all on its own.

Layne even gets to bust out some great vocal chops in her various signing performances as Dandelion. Doherty’s singing skills and entire performance are a little more generic. Thankfully, he and Layne do sound nice when they’re crooning together. Unfortunately, none of Dandelion’s original ditties are as lyrically memorable as songs from other musician-oriented indies like Wild Rose or Once. Layne’s terrific voice is handily the greatest asset during the melody-centric parts of Dandelion.

Siegel's script culminates in some predictable storytelling terrain, including a too-tidy resolution to Dandelion's problems at home. These and more generic visual details (like leaning too heavily on conventional medium shots in interior sequences) keep Dandelion from transforming into the cinematic equivalent of (as Casey Kasem might say) an all-time chart-topper. Still, glorious autumn-tinged visuals and KiKi Layne’s lead performance give this combination of Nomadland and Wild Rose some high notes well worth listening to. Huzzah for another winner in the autumn cinema canon!