BALLERINA FULFILLS DREAM

COMPETITION JUST NEVER QUITS DURING THE DAY OR DURING THE NIGHT

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Little girls want to be dancers and every ballerina wants to dance with the famous Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.

The truth be told, a little ballerina from Texas was accepted to the academy but her inner pain for recognition became symbolized in the tremendous physical punishment she had to endure to succeed.

Talia Ryder plays American ballet dancer Joy Womack, whom at the age of 15 years old begins to fulfil her lifelong dream under the tutelage of ballet instructor Tatiyana Volkova, in The American (2024).

Director James Napier Robertson leaves little room for pleasure as Joy must begin working on improvements the moment she meets Volkova and the dancers already under her spell. Diane Kruger is cast well as the tough but brilliant ballet teacher who advances her own career every time one of her dancing girls advances to a big stage, the Bolshoi being the biggest of them all.

Robertson moves the camera around like a principal dancer on stage in front of the bright lights of film production. And at times, the director creates art with the lens and the light or the lack of light in natural settings, while constantly looking to frame the subject in a portrait.

The script quickly becomes rather singular along an extremely linear narrative just as Joy shows how hard she can work as a determined student under Volkova.

Kruger shows how Volkova prescribes to the tough brutal love that she thinks the little girls need, far away from their mother’s doting love. The dancers must constantly improve themselves toward that which they aspire to be, at least for one moment – the prima ballerina of the Moscow stage.

Joy finds other problems, other than the lack of talent which her detractors claim, such as the politics of elite competition and the exchange of favors, sometimes without much dignity left behind in the process.

Ryder, herself a classically trained dancer, shows how the inner strength and determination of the dancer is often just not enough, especially when the dancer’s body begins to break down from all the physical punishment of practicing everyday, and all day.

A score drives many scenes, and not just the music from the ballet, but an original score with a bit of lighting and set design, that all aesthetics considered, changes the tone and atmosphere, from time to time, to drive the narrative.

The overall vision of the film focusses on Joy’s life as a ballerina in Moscow. Several years pass by in Moscow, but the attention of the camera becomes every moment Joy dedicated to ballet, which results in a lot of aesthetic detail and emotive experiences compressed into a rather seamless and effortless viewing over a 1h 50m runtime.

The film at times becomes as beautiful as a ballet.

Oleg Ivenko does a good job as Nikolay Lebedev. Lebedev is shown to have been empathetic toward Joy as she suffers and triumphs while he provides her with companionship and a bit of direction in how to succeed in ballet.

The American is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, and is also known as Joika.