Sadly disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (20 December 2010)

I'll never forget the first day I put on my pointe shoes. For years I dreamed of how wonderful it would be to finally be en pointe, and the crushing reality that hit me when the excruciating pain in my toes put to rest my fantasies of ballet stardom.
And so it was, my expectations of a long awaited ballet movie were dashed by the ridiculous supposedly psychological overtones.
First, there is the poster. They couldn't have found an uglier picture than that? And I thought that the made up face of Padmé Amidala was bad...
We start out with a ballerina and her ballerina mother who gave it all up to have the daughter. Um, didn't we already see that in The Turning Point? I agree with the other reviewer who stated that she would have rather had seen a real ballet dancer who didn't act as well than an actress who couldn't dance very well.
I didn't see the director as nefarious. I didn't see the mother as destructive. I didn't see Mila as malicious. I felt that the movie was trying too hard to make it so...
The core would have spent hours and hours rehearsing, yet she had no relationship at all with her male partner. I found him attractive and would have liked to seen more of him in the film.
I turned away from the gory scenes. They added nothing to the film.
I enjoyed the music. I enjoyed the standing ovation. I enjoyed the beauty of her face as the movie ended. Too bad I didn't enjoy the whole movie...