Ballet Shoes (2008)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

A Brilliant Conflict

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I saw this movie about a year ago and watched it just recently. I have to admit the only reason I decided to even watch this was because of the lovely and just beautiful Emma Watson. What can I say I am a guy. Why else would I watch this?I had seen Emilia Fox before and Victoria Wood. Overall it had a good ensemble and decent acting. This was Emma Watson's first role outside of Harry Potter as far as I know. Although her character is portrayed as a bit selfish and cocky in the beginning of the movie, we get to see a girl who becomes sweeter and begins to care about others at the end. Her character Pauline is actually very insecure and Watson does some good work crying in the movie and showing all the appropriate emotions that are called for. My favorite part of hers is when she snaps at Victoria Wood for leaving her wrap in the wings, then she breaks down and sobs as she is running a tub while talking to Petrova.The little redhead Posey is a brat and plays a brat, and Petrova is more or less a sweetheart who seems kind. The wardrobe and the recreation of the time period of the 1930s is all well done and has a nice feel to it.I have to say that the ending kind of came suddenly with kind of a real lack of emotion. I was hoping for something more touching and less anti-climatic.It is a nice story for young children, especially girls. And that the movie teaches that with hard work, caring about family and putting them first, and believing in yourself that dreams can in fact come true. The DVD has special features with about a twenty minute or so interview with Emma Watson herself talking about why she took on the project, and what it was like working with the other actors, and her insight on the movie which I found delightful. The interview reveals she is not only beautiful, but is a very well spoken intelligent sweet young lady. I hope to see much more of her in independent, interesting roles in the years to come. 8 stars out of 10 for ballet shoes. Bravo!

I normally don't like drama, or ballet, but I decided to give this a go anyway.Ballet Shoes takes place in 1930'ies England, and the plot revolves around three girls and how they try to realize their dreams, despite living in poverty. It's a drama film, although not overly dramatic.The film opens in the home of archaeologist and adventurer Matthew – later called Gum, Great uncle Matthew – who travels the world and brings home little souvenirs; parentless children in need of new homes, which his niece Sylvia are given to take care of while he's away.The main story begins when the three girls – Pauline, Petrova and Posey – have become a little older and are going to school. Their adoptive mother Sylvia can no longer afford paying for their educations and they have to leave school, and, to even afford living in their house, start renting out some of the rooms. Quite conveniently, two of the guests are retired teachers who offer to give the girls full education, free of charge.The plot centers around the three sisters' talents and their attempts to make something out of them and fulfill their dreams. This is the problem with this film; there is such a lot to make a film from, such a lot of plot material and characters to develop, and yet the producers feel the urge to squeeze in four or five quite detailed life stories in an hour and a half. The result is that the film seems rushed, they can't focus on developing one character for more than a minute at a time. They try to make all the characters interesting and well-developed, but excel with none of them. And ironically, the one they give most time to develop, Pauline and her acting, isn't the one you'd think the story ought to be about; Posey is the ballet dancer. I think they should've made the film two hours long; give the character more time to develop and don't rush the story. When you see how much they squeeze into these 90 minutes, you notice it wouldn't have been very long-winded even at 120 minutes; they have a lot of story and characters to develop, yet don't take the time they need. As it is now, most of the personality changes seem unnatural. For example, Pauline becomes quite the diva after her successes on stage and think everyone else should help her with everything and allow her to "save her strength", but this comes so suddenly and goes away just as fast, so that it only seems like a last minute idea, despite Watson's acting.And speaking of acting, it is the actors that really keep the film together. Ballet Shoes gives us a chunk of Britain's prime actors; from veterans like Richard Griffiths, Eileen Atkins and Gemma Jones, to newborn stars like Emma Watson, to those in between like Emilia Fox. Three of the actors, Griffiths, Watson and Jones, have all been in the Harry Potter movies, where they played Uncle Vernon, Hermione Granger and Madam Pomfrey respectively; here they take on the roles of Gum, Pauline Fossil and Dr Jakes. Emilia Fox, from Silent Witness, also takes on a leading role in the film as Sylvia, the girls' adoptive mother. The actors all do a great job, they make the characters believable despite the film only allowing them to develop a blink at a time.The editing (in the parts that don't feel rushed), the camera work and the music, together with the actors, all give the film a unique atmosphere. However, one thing that is hard to ignore, at least for us who don't normally enjoy pure drama films, is the lack of conflict.Sure the family is poor, and sure they find it hard to afford new clothes for the theatre, the rent and all the whatnot. And everything doesn't run perfectly smooth for the girls when they try to fulfill their dreams; but it never feels as if they might actually fail. The obstacles they face never seem too hard to beat, that beating them actually is a challenge. The film is so quick to skip between scenes and plot lines that the characters don't get time to actually face any obstacles, any such scene is cut out to be able to get film under 90 minutes.Atop of all that, the film is full of wonderful coincidences that make sure all characters live happily ever after, again completely without conflict or resistance, without rivalry between any characters and so forth. At times it gets so sugar sweet and happy that I can't stand it, but the quick cutting is there to save me from too much happiness. If your parents told you you should stop watching such violent and scary films when you were little, and said you ought to see something happier and lighter, they probably meant Ballet Shoes. It's virtually void of conflict, at least the kind that has time to get you engaged in it, and absolutely everyone lives happily ever after. Not too dramatic for a drama film.On the whole I think they should've made the film longer, giving the characters more time to develop, and they should've added some kind of proper conflict or believable obstacles, to make story more interesting. It's absolutely not a horrible movie, if you like drama you'll probably enjoy a lot more than I did. But for us who want a little bit of obstacles for the main characters to overcome, that they might actually fail at something, it's not a film I'd recommend. I've seen it twice now in three years, and it's going to take a lot to make me watch is again.6/10

frankly, i thought this movie was awful...and terribly boring. i had a very difficult time getting through it. the actresses didn't do a very good job playing the characters in my opinion. they seemed so..so i boring and they simply didn't have any depth to them. watching the movie was thoroughly exhausting. The plot wasn't very good either. It's just not eventful enough. allow me to rephrase that. it wasn't interesting enough.that's it. Movies are supposed to entertain people and teach morals or whatever and this one didn't do a very good job at that. there is a high probability that you'll be falling asleep even if you're going to watch at noon for goodness sake.

Notice Emma Hermione in the first two Harry Potter features and I found that she stood out. The first four novels underlined that. Princess, could there be any other like that one of the railway carriage of HP 1? Music. Dance. I now rate Emma for the Hermione of the novels? Here she is, as Emma Pauline, and in part, for me, this continues in those footsteps. Later episodes of HP features mostly made Emma's role unrecognisable, I am grateful to this Ballet Shoes for re-kindling a spark. Two special bits when she has to perform. Her acting changing from a low key natural style to overdrive, showing raw power. So truly awesome. And it helps me to appreciate the low key more. I have to rate this feature higher than HP 4, 5, 6 and 8, though she does carry over some of the gritty persona that she learned for 4 and 5 and to me that is overdoing the grit that Pauline of the novel has. * Look at the DVD box cover pics and there was something recognisable there that did not click, but when it did this feature became extra special. There was Yasmin tooth fairy by Emma's side. Here my first two versions of the comment go askew. Tooth is no stranger to machines or flying, and here she is in what would otherwise be a standard nerd role. But it is on stage she is prone to appear to be a nerd. She is expected to act. The biggest low is when she is expected to pretend that she is a fairy. The biggest low for me is when she is scripted to have a geographer / developer motivation rather than a mech. engineering motivation. Tooth even manages to share a bath with Emma. Dream of dreams. So much better than the novel. True there will have been a film crew there, too high a price. True, they were both in tears. My biggest flaw in commenting on this feature related to this part. In the 30's some would have considered a cuddle bath to be mandatory, given the tears, but not as many as today? I had been hoping to start looking for DVDs of mid teens Drew Barrymore. Ballet Shoes told me that I needed to hold off from that for a while, concentrate on Tooth, and there were some Tooth around that I still did not have. All I got around to with Drew was a naughty girl Drew, Ivy, which is not fun sort of naughty. * Lucy Posy Boy n Ton as a problem for me. In this role she needs to be highs and lows and the highs are way more magnificent than the others, for me she does those well, but the lows are way more the opposite of magnificent and as with Emma in later HP she does that way too well. Her reaction to Madame's illness compares to UK problems with situational ethics over the past thirty years. The highs include her dance. I accept that she does not dance as an expert in ballet might, but there is still something special about her approach. The biggest flaw in this feature is how the stunt double linked in, it was the only part of this feature that was visually false, looking like Posy at the very end of the story. Elizabeth Bernard's 1987 novel, Satin Slippers 3: Stars In Her Eyes. This centres on the question of how should a dancer chose if needing to chose between her child and her dance. I did need this novel for that aspect in Ballet Shoes to be clear. * For these to stand out, it helped that the other performances were so okay. Except this is a BBC television adaptation that was made for them by the ITV? Has the world really gone so weird? Something about this story makes one cuckoo?