The Company

The Company

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Movie Reviews of The Company

Movie Review: For ballet fans, the best ballet movie ever made.
Summary: 5 Stars

Neve Campbell, the film's star, had been a professional dancer and had trained at Canada's National School of Ballet from age 9 (she started dancing at age 6). She gave up dancing because a long history of injuries (about 40, in all) intersected with an increasing number of acting opportunities. When she was cast in "Party of Five" at age 20, the acting took over her career.

Her contributions to the picture are staggering to contemplate. The seven-year project that it represents was Campbell's dream. Briefly (and over-simplified), she conceived the idea, sold it, co-wrote the story with Barbara Turner, and nursed the project through an intensive final three-year gestation period, where she and Turner commuted to Chicago to spend time with the Joffrey observing classes, rehearsals, and performances and getting to know the dancers. Then Turner and Campbell persuaded Altman to direct the film, after which Campbell spent 4 1/2 months of 8 1/2-hour days dancing herself back into performing shape and another 1 1/2 months of 8 1/2-hour days dancing with the Joffrey prior to the start of shooting.

Three days before she was to join the company, she broke a rib. She danced through the month-and-a-half with the Joffrey and the entire filming with that injury. She performed not only as the movie's dramatic but also as its ballet star. She did all of her own dance scenes and also served as co-producer. Her acting and her dancing in "The Company" are both superb.

The dance sequences are sensationally good and sensationally well filmed. Perhaps the best of a most memorable lot is Campbell's and partner Domingo Rubio's performance of "My Funny Valentine," a pas de deux ballet, in an outdoor Chicago venue as a summer storm rolls in, lending its thunder, lightning, wind, and rain accompaniment to the on-stage trio and the Lar Lubovitch choreography. This is the same ballet that American Ballet Theatre has performed with Sandra Brown and Julie Kent dancing Campbell's role. Lubovitch originally made the ballet on Sandra Brown. Indeed, a very brief rehearsal-tape clip of ABT's Sandra Brown and Marcelo Gomes is shown being watched by Joffrey personnel and the choreographer as they prepare the ballet for performance.

The audience for the movie may be narrow because the picture is all about ballet, a ballet company, and the way those associated with that company lead their lives; in many cases in a state of near-poverty, which is tolerable in exchange for the opportunity to dance (Campbell's character has a second job as a waitress to help pay the rent). "The Company" has the flavor of a documentary, albeit a considerably enhanced one, because its focus on dance, ballet culture, and the ambience of dancers' lives does not permit an elaborate problem-solution or beginning-middle-end story line. Think Frederick Wiseman (a la his ABT documentary) with dialog and a near-heroine.

Campbell did not want this movie to be the standard corps-to-stardom ballet melodrama, and she did not want it to be about her. While it is clear that she is one of the film's principal interests, she pretty successfully blends into the body of the company, which really is the film's principal interest. For fans of ballet, it is the best ballet movie ever made. There is nothing phony or artificial or sentimental about it. The message is simple and direct: This is the way it is in the ballet world.

And it is beautifully cast and wonderfully acted in those segments where there is the opportunity for acting. Malcolm McDowell, as the company's artistic director, is splendid. James Franco, as Campbell's love interest of the moment, is as fully beautiful a person as she. And Campbell is heroic in any dimension one cares to name. A single measure of that: When the film concluded its shooting, Gerald Arpino, the real-life artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet, asked Campbell to join the real-life company.

Summary of The Company