The film was widely praised, particularly for Latimer's direction and its authentic indigenous style and voice, and won various documentary awards at Canadian festivals.

[2] It does not follow a traditional documentary format, using evocative imagery instead of talking heads; King is never seen to speak, appearing on screen independent to his narration.

[3] The film also uses dramatic juxtaposition to deliver its message, including scenes with King's narration overlaying an image of him eating popcorn while watching old film Westerns and following a scene of Dakota Access Pipeline protests with one of a man distributing seal meat to indigenous Canadian families, having previously clubbed it to ensure it was shot dead.

[5] Maurice and Monkman appear as trickster figures in the film, both in a way Latimer described as gender bending and two-spirit; she incorporated Maurice's Coyote character and Monkman's alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle to reflect on "the colonization of sexuality in Western culture", saying that "it was only with the onset of Christianity that we started to have judgment based on sexuality.

[5] She told CBC News that a moment during filming of an art gallery scene "reminded [her] why she became a filmmaker"; they were recording Monkman's painting The Scream, which depicts a young indigenous child being taken from their parents by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in the gallery when an indigenous girl of a similar age came to see it, being pulled away from the image by her parents in a way that seemed to mimic the painting.

Latimer was inspired by the moment where life imitates art and by the knowledge that a hundred years ago the girl in the museum would be the one depicted in the painting, saying it showed the idea of circular storytelling and how "the history is right now.

[12] Director Latimer's indigenous identity came into question when the press release for the film mentioned a specific connection to the Kitigan Zibi, which is not recognized by the community.

"[19] For The Georgia Straight, Radheyan Simonpillai praised the film, comparing it to early documentaries and ethnographic films, like Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North, which generally spread disinformation about indigenous communities; he said that "the propulsive and poetic lesson on how history frames Indigenous people [...] experiments with the doc form while challenging the genre's definition of truth and representation.

But if on this Canadian Screen Award weekend we are indeed asked to consider the state of the country’s arts – where we have been, and where we might be heading – then watching Inconvenient Indian feels like an essential act.