Rating: R | Runtime: 113 minutes
Release Date: July 12th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: IFC Films
Director(s): Nicole Riegel
Writer(s): Nicole Riegel

Chasing dreams is hard.

Growing frustrated with the lot of a gig performer playing background at upscale restaurants while customers eat, chat, and scroll their phones, Dandelion (KiKi Layne) is desperate for release. What can she do, though, with an ailing mother at home and a need to pay the bills? To get a full-time job is to lose the time she must dedicate to her art. To constantly have that art ignored rather than enjoyed on a concert stage is to wonder if her dream in music has run its course. So, Dandelion takes a chance and drives from Cincinnati to South Dakota for a biker-centric music contest. Will it be her big break or the last coffin nail?

Despite the first ten or so minutes being dedicated to the titular character, Nicole Riegel’s Dandelion moves to someone else upon entering that competition’s environment. Casey (Thomas Doherty) is much less anxious when he arrives. Rather than a newcomer searching for a Hail Mary, he’s a returning act who already gave up his dream three years prior. Here simply to help support his old friends and bandmates, Casey doesn’t really have any expectations beyond the reunion. Until he runs into Dandelion, invites her to their campfire, and finds the love for music through her presence once again.

Sometimes the narrative feels like a spin on Once with two singers joining forces to rekindle their creative juices en route to a passionate yet non-physical relationship. Other times it falls into the romantic routines of love-at-first sight whirlwinds assisted by the aphrodisiac of a shared artistic devotion. There’s obvious chemistry between Dandelion and Casey both musically and physically. They’ll surely act on the former, but the latter? Well, certain revelations throw that possibility in flux … until they don’t. Because of the transparency of their existence, though, I can’t deny that I couldn’t quite invest in the coupling beyond the songs. The other shoe was presented to us, so it dropping became inevitable.

I thought Riegel was going to use that to her advantage and deliver something fresh in the process—both because the first half of the film balances that line to perfection and because I was a big fan of her debut Holler. Unfortunately, the second half leans into the clichés rather than subvert them. It tries to find intrigue by going all Fleetwood Mac with one songwriting session (the two start getting under each other’s skin by bringing their conflicting emotions into the song), but ultimately dives full bore into a love affair that we know cannot last. So, we must hope it will at least teach its participants something through the experience.

Thankfully, at least where it concerns Dandelion, it does. However, by attempting to give Casey more weight than he probably deserves as a supporting character to her life, I really stopped caring about him as a three-dimensional human being himself. It makes a scene towards the end feel forced and fake in its design to tug on our heartstrings—a distraction from our real point of focus needing our support instead. Because this is Dandelion’s story. This is a rebirth in music and reminder that the pain and suffering of her life can fuel it. This isn’t therefore a love story between two people. Its marriage is between an artist and her art.

In that regard, there’s a lot to like. Layne is fantastic. She carries the whole emotionally as well as structurally with a joy for life when finally allowed to breathe and experience it on her own terms. Doherty is good too, but a secondary player masquerading as a co-lead while the music (written The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and much more enjoyable as “real” songs unlike the disappointing musical numbers they provided Cyrano) proves her actual costar. This is a journey of self-discovery and artistic craft as Dandelion’s sound, power, and compositions grow with each step forward.

The final song, “River (Ten Feet Deep)”, which is co-written with the Dessners by Riegel, Layne, and Noah Harmon, is worth the wait.

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KiKi Layne and Thomas Doherty in DANDELION; courtesy of IFC Films.