Can an Indigenous person make the system work for them when there’s troubling racism and maddening bureaucracy at every turn? This is one of the questions explored in Aberdeen, the new film by Ryan Cooper and Eva Thomas.

When we meet the titular Aberdeen (Gail Maurice), she’s sleeping off a hangover on a park bench after a night of drinking. Wise-cracking and fearless, she punches the security guard who kicked her awake and is hauled off to The Drunk Tank by the police (the fact that she was attacked first doesn’t seem to matter to the cops). In the process of getting arrested, Aberdeen also loses her Status Card, which becomes a pivotal plot development.

This isn’t Aberdeen’s first arrest, and she knows the drill: she calls her younger brother, who drives in to bail her out. However, this time he has a bombshell for her:  Aberdeen’s brother has cancer and can no longer take care of her or her grandchildren; his illness has compelled him to leave the three kids in foster care.

When Aberdeen learns her grandkids are in the system – being raised by white people – she is distraught. A member of the Peguis First Nature, Aberdeen believes the children should be raised by their family. The issue? She is the only family they have left, and she’ll have to get sober and find a steady job in order to care for them. She’ll also need a new Status Card, which isn’t easy to come by when white bureaucrats make the rules.

Ultimately, Aberdeen makes plenty of salient points about the systemic discrimination faced by Indigenous communities. Maurice’s performance is frenetic – and occasionally heartbreaking- as a woman who must learn to ask for the help she knows she needs rather than push loved ones away. However, it’s the parts of Aberdeen’s journey we don’t see that keep this movie from being truly great. We the audience witness scenes of horrific suffering and some moments of deserved relief; however, we don’t witness much of the healing that empowers Aberdeen to save herself. That character development could have been the most interesting part of the movie…