Ballet Shoes (2008)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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

Having loved the book growing up, I was bound to see this. I had bought the 1975 BBC version and found it to be absolutely terrible, as it completely mishandled the adaptation. What is surprising is that the 1975 version ran longer and could be argued as being more faithful to the book. Having said that, this version of Ballet Shoes captures the spirit of the story much better. I loved Emilia Fox's Sylvia and the entire cast did very well. I had been a little apprehensive of Emma Watson as Pauline since I'd never seen her as anything but Hermione from the Harry Potter series, but I was pretty happy with the performance after all. I won't recap the story here, but basically; I love the book, and the movie brought out the reasons why I loved it, so that's good enough for me. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Noel Streatfeild's book 'Ballet Shoes' was read by nearly every English girl who is now a woman over fifty. It was filmed in 1975 and here it is again. If you don't mind the fact that the plot will not stand a close examination (one character disappears for twelve years without explanation, before returning, but no one finds that odd), and if you are willing to watch a film for its fairtytale qualities and sparkle, then you will find this most enjoyable and well done. Most viewers will be female, either women delightfully reminiscing, or young girls still innocent enough to dream (if there are any left who are not already binge-drinking and having sex at the age of ten). Heidi Thomas's script doesn't even try to make sense of the implausible plot, but just gets on with the fun. The film has been very well directed by Sandra Goldbacher, now we hope rescued from the world of television advertising. The story concerns three orphan girls living in a big house whose owner is absent. They are played with tremendous youthful energy and verve by Emma Watson, Yasmin Paige, and Lucy Boynton. They are 'running out of money' and cannot afford dresses, despite the fact that they live in a huge mansion (see page 94), but let's not worry about that inconsistency. One wants to act, one wants to be a ballet dancer, and one wants to be an airplane pilot. Well, why not? They struggle and have vicissitudes, as one must do to succeed, and manage to earn enough money to keep the bailiffs from the door. They are looked after by Emilia Fox, who coughs and becomes increasingly frail and wan but never quite gets the TB that is hinted at, and she falls in love, and is broken-hearted and desolate, but ... well, I ain't sayin' what happens there. Comedienne Victoria Wood is a kind of super-nanny to all, showing her warm heart straight off the AGA, Richard Griffiths is as jolly as ever when he is around, and that is very jolly indeed. Everybody has a great time, and so do we.

I tuned in with anticipation to what had been billed as the all-star centrepiece to BBC England's Christmas schedule. Listings names such as Emilia Fox and Richard Griffiths as well as British stage stalwarts, the programme instantly glared of lazy and pretentious direction. The start was tenuous, almost ridiculous, and descended into the depths with wooden acting - the cameo from Victoria Wood must go down as one of the worst performances in living memory. I read about six months ago that Emma Watson had turned down handfuls of roles for the chance to perform in this tripe, and did herself no favours with a supposed sympathetic role of burdened orphan that came across as nothing more than an arrogant, sycophantic spoilt brat. Just when you thought the film was building up to a resurrecting finale, it just faded out - perhaps reflecting the team equally saw how horrific this was and just gave up. This wasn't bad, it was a disgrace.