She Dances eloquently explores father-daughter relationships, the gift of genuine friendship and the power that comes from learning to let go.
Director: Rick Gomez
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Run Time: 93′
Tribeca Screening: June 5, 2025 (Spotlight Narrative)
U.S. Release Date: TBA
U.K. Release Date: TBA
Grief can take a vicious toll on even the strongest relationships. The process of healing from loss is non-linear and while things do get better, they never feel quite the same. It’s hard to re-enter life when such a huge part of it is missing and you are expected to keep on going. Learning to find your footing through monumental loss is at the emotional crux of Rick Gomez and Steve Zahn’s film, She Dances.
The movie explores the ways in which relationships are tested, broken and rediscovered after losing someone vital in your life.
She Dances opens on Jason (Steve Zahn, of Silo) working to charm two prospective buyers. He and his best friend Brian (Ethan Hawke, of Blue Moon) are trying to sell their small distillery, after losing Jason’s son, Jack, for whom the distillery was named after. In the wake of Jack’s death, Jason has found it difficult to get his footing in the world while feeling the enormous absence of his son.
Ever since Jack’s death, Jason has had trouble connecting with his daughter Claire (Audrey Zahn). He lives apart from her and his ex-wife, Deb (Rosemarie DeWitt, of Out of My Mind), and is never really in their day-to-day lives, given Claire’s strong protest against spending time with her distant father.
The one thing Claire holds closest to her is her lifelong love for dance. With high school graduation on the horizon and one last dance competition coming up with her best friend Kat (Mackenzie Ziegler), things are changing rapidly for Claire. Claire and Kat are extremely excited to perform together one last time, but when Deb is called away to care for her mother, the girls’ final dance is on the line.
With no other options, Claire reluctantly asks Jason to chaperone. Understanding what a big deal this is to his daughter and seeing this as his once last chance to reenter her life before she leaves for college, Jason decides to go all in to try and win his daughter back.
In She Dances, writers Rick Gomez and Steve Zahn masterfully weave together a story of loss, love and friendship with the perfect balance of humor and sincerity. Through Jason and Claire’s fractured relationship and close friendships with Brian and Kat respectively, the film shows the ways in which relationships hold us together in the midst of tragedy.
On top of losing her brother, Claire has entered a time of massive change in her life. She’s saying goodbye to high school and leaving behind the dance world as she’s always known it. She says that while everything is changing around her, she feels stuck in her grief. The one thing that visibly lights up her spirit is her relationship with Kat. While dance serves as her outlet to emote, Kat is her safe space to air out any of her thoughts, no matter how serious or upsetting they may be.
Jason’s relationship with Brian echoes this. Brian shows up for Jason before he even asks him to because he understands what Jason has gone through and has seen the toll it has taken on him. The sincerity and genuine care written into these friendships is so refreshing to see in a film that tackles grief. It highlights the people whom we adopt as safe spaces and their selfless desire to be there for people they love who are in pain.
Kat pushes Claire to allow Jason in and Brian guides Jason on how to approach mending his relationship with Claire. While the film is more obviously centered around Jason and Claire’s relationships, the depiction of these meaningful friendships shows that it takes a village to put people back together after a life-altering loss.
She Dances serves as a love letter to father-daughter relationships and being able to grow alongside one another. Initially, it’s hard for Jason to see Claire as the adult she is becoming. She’s always been the baby of the family and losing Jack has hardened her to a point where he barely recognizes her.
In turn, the loss of Jack has shut Jason down completely. He is so devastated that he can’t bring himself to speak about it with anyone. However, since Claire has never had to consider her father’s emotional vulnerabilities before, as most children don’t when they are young, she thinks he’s ignoring their loss.
Jason can’t see Claire as an adult and Claire can’t see her father’s pain and the ways he is trying to mask it. This tragedy has forced them to redefine their relationship and shows audiences the growing pains that come when trying to understand your child or parent in a completely new dimension.
She Dances is a powerhouse of a film filled with as many moments of laughs as it has moments of introspection. It serves as a compassionate look into parent-child relationships and the ways in which both parties need and show up for one another. While this may be Steve Zahn’s first foray into the role of co-writer, given how beautifully this story is painted, let’s hope it’s not his last.
She Dances: Movie Plot & Recap
Synopsis:
Claire and Kat are looking forward to going to their last competitive dance competition, where they’ll perform together for one final time before graduating from high school. At the last minute, Claire’s mother is no longer able to take them and with Kat’s parents out of the question, it leaves Claire’s father, Jason, as the last resort. While she’s reluctant to spend any more time with her distant father than she has to, Jason agrees to step up to take them and attempts to mend their relationship along the way.
Pros:
- Rick Gomez and Steve Zahn’s story is bursting with love, sincerity and charm.
- You will go in thinking it’s a film about father-daughter dynamics, but will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of varying relationships the film explores and how they keep us afloat in the most trying of times.
Cons:
- With so many themes being explored and lots of plot points driving those discussions, some of the storylines are left unfinished by the end of the film, making them feel extraneous.
She Dances was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 5, 2025 and will be screened again on June 6-14.
