The Company

Synopsis: Ry (Neve Campbell) is a dancer with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet run by Alberto Antonelli (Malcolm McDowell), aka Mr A. We follow the ups and downs of a season’s production

‘Musical’ films have three main aspects – the story, the performances, and the rehearsals for them. The story is but a framework for the main focus, the rehearsals and backstage mechanics provide the sense of anticipation, and the production numbers are the highlights. The Company, albeit about ballet, sticks close to this convention. It opens with a wonderfully contemporary number Tensile Involvement and during the course of its 112 mins gives us a variety of performances by the troupe. These are the magic moments of the film, both in themselves (although one might except the closing number, The Blue Snake, a long and lumbering–looking piece which we only see in fragments) and for the way they have been photographed. Most of the dancing is confined to these performances although, as is to be expected, we also given some ‘in rehearsal’ preparation. These terpsichorean sequences on their own make this film an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

Where Altman’s latest cinematic foray does ask for indulgence is in its unimaginative and, arguably, irrelevant fictional framework. Attributed to Neve Campbell (who is a trained dancer and who initiated the project) and scriptwriter Barbara Turner it drags the audience through a limply winsome romance between Ry and her pretty boyfriend (James Franco), Ry’s part-time job, and lashings of Mr A’s autocratic management style. The presence of the latter, played by the oddly-cast McDowell who, despite his English public-school accent and parade-ground swagger, is supposed to be Italian, lacks any integral dynamic justification and is over-exposed to the point of tedium. And let’s not mention the woefully lame Christmas 'roast' which is nothing more than a redundant reworking of what we have already seen. Whilst narrative and script are well-known to be of little interest to Altman one can only wish that someone had come up with a fitting context to present what is really of importance in the film, and to Ms Campbell - the dancing - and that there had been more of this and a lot less of its extramural embellishments.

 

 

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