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THE COMPANY
by Peter Sobczynski

December 25th, 2003

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Starring: Neve Campbell, James Franco, Malcolm McDowell, Domingo Rubio, Barbara Robertson. Directed by: Robert Altman. Produced by: Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, Joshua Astrachan, Robert Altman. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language, some nudity and sexual content. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Throughout his career, maverick director Robert Altman has made some of the most astounding films ever made-as long as people continue to study the cinema as an art form, they will be looking at "Nashville", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" and "Short Cuts" (to name only a few). On the other hand, he is also capable of turning out some real duds-movies so devoid of even the most basic entertainment values that it seems unbelievable that a sentient human being, let along a master filmmaker, could have conceived of them (if you don’t believe me, try sitting through "Beyond Therapy" sometime). In fact, this predictable unpredictability on his part is actually one of the things I value most about him as a director; when I go into one of his films, I can be assured that while I might love it or hate it, I won’t come away feeling indifferent to it.

And yet, that is exactly the reaction I had to his latest film, the Chicago-shot ballet drama "The Company". It isn’t a masterpiece and it certainly isn’t a complete disaster by any means. The problem, though, is that it isn’t really much of anything at all in the end. As a result, while it may have the loose-knit narrative and visual style of an Altman film, it never really feels like one. As a result, "The Company" is the one thing that I never imagined that an Altman film could be-mediocre.

Part of this may come form the fact that the project is not one that sprang directly for him. For years, Neve Campbell, herself an accomplished dancer before becoming an actress, has been trying to develop a film that would be set in the world of ballet but which, unlike melodramas like "The Turning Point", "Center Stage" and others, would focus less on an obvious dramatic storyline (like the old chestnut about the ingenue who becomes a star) and center more on the day-to-day life of the members of a working ballet company. It was Campbell who conceived of the story with screenwriter Barbara Turner, convinced Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet to allow the film to be set amidst one season (and using the dancers themselves in roles) and brought Altman in as well.

Campbell’s desire to eschew a formal storyline-as well as a traditional lead role for herself-was a good notion but "The Company" never really gains anything from it. Part of the problem is that while the Joffrey dancers acquit themselves well while dancing, they never really make much of an impression during the non-performance scenes. As a result, the only dancer that, by default, we can really get a handle on is Ry, the one played by Campbell; if ever there was a case of a star vehicle by default, it is "The Company".

Another problem caused by the stripping away of narrative elements is the fact that a lot of potential storylines and characters are introduced at the beginning, only to disappear soon afterwards. Early on, we meet a group of dancers who are crashing on the floor of one large apartment in order to save money and it seems as though their interactions will become important as the season goes on but no-after one dumb condom joke, they all but disappear. Even those in Ry’s orbit get short shrift-various parents and step-parents come and go and she develops a romance with a chef-in-training (James Franco) that is kind of sweet but so thinly developed that the movie is nearly three-quarters over before we learn that his name is supposed to Josh.

When Altman made his beautiful, misunderstood musical version of "Popeye" in 1980, he decided to ignore formal choreography and instead approached his production numbers in the way that he went about his other scenes-by shooting them in a loose, ramshackle style (in the spirit of not only his films but the original E.C. Segar comic strip that he was working from) in which the camera seemed less interested in the grand scheme of the scene and instead followed individual people around. The problem with the way that he approaches shooting the ballet sequences in this film is that he hasn’t figured out a way to convert the highly ritualized and precise movements of ballet (and the one thing that viewers get from the film is a true sense of just how much effort the dancers go through to achieve what seems so effortless in performance) into cinematic terms. There are a couple of memorable dance numbers in the film (the most striking being a storm-swept outdoor dance to "My Funny Valentine" and the spooky modernist "White Widow", which makes effective use of music by Angel Badalamenti and David Lynch) but most of the others are shot rather indifferently. The only other standout moment is the climactic staging of Robert Desrosiers’ "The Blue Snake", which is so wildly overscaled (with the dancers being swamped by the elaborate visual effects) that you assume that it has to be a joke-a riff on the low-grade crowd-pleasures that sometimes need to be done to get the money for the more important works. However, you never get that sense from either the performers or Altman-it feels as if they have told a wonderful joke, only they don’t realize it.

Besides the aforementioned dance scenes, "The Company" does offer intermittent pleasures-Malcolm McDowell all but steals the proceeding with his broadly comic turn as the domineering head of the company (which isn’t saying that much since he is the only one to get any memorable dialogue to recite) and the work by cinematographer Andrew Dunn makes it one of the best-looking shot-on-video films I have ever seen. However, they never quite compensate for the lack of urgency or cohesion that otherwise permeates the film. The best films about ballet-something like Michael Powell’s "The Red Shoes"-are the ones that inspire viewers to go out and want to study ballet. In the end, all that "The Company" really does is make you want to go out and study "The Red Shoes".

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.