When an actress who trained as a ballet dancer before making it big in the movies, stars, co-writes, and co-produces in a movie about ballet, you have to wonder if it will just be a vanity piece for her. The Company, for which Neve Campbell did all of those things, is anything but a vanity piece. Directed by Robert Altman, and featuring the Joffrey Ballet Troupe of Chicago, it avoids all Hollywood clichés to emerge as a fascinating and entertaining look into the world of ballet.
Rather than a conventional plot, The Company merely allows us, fly-on-the-wall-like, inside the world of the Joffrey Ballet Troupe. We follow the dancers over an unspecified length of time through, not high drama, but the ordinary events of their lives. We see the struggling apprentice dancers sharing a tiny apartment. We see the 43-year-old lead female ballet dancer as she proclaims, "I've been doing this dance with these counts for the past ten years and it's always been good enough before now and I don't plan on changing it." And we follow Neve's Ry, a dancer somewhere in the middle, no longer an apprentice but not yet a star. It is in the minutia of their daily lives that the movie dwells and it is fascinating. We follow them through their triumphs and tragedies as all of the characters, no matter how small the part, are shown as likably human and sympathetic.
Apart from Neve, the only two actors of note in the movie are James Franco as Ry's Chef boyfriend and Malcolm McDowell as the scene stealing Artistic Director of the Ballet Troupe. McDowell is picture perfect in the role, obnoxious and funny, often at the same time. He can not help but intrude into every aspect of the ballet, sitting in on a rehearsal in one scene with the statement of "I'm not here, just carry on." but is in minutes, giving advice.
The movie begins with a voice over announcement "To make sure all cell phones are turned off and that the use of flash photography is strictly forbidden", just as you would hear at a live theater performance. This is appropriate in that the ballet productions, of which there are several, have the feel of a live performance, so much so in fact that at one point I had to stop myself from actually applauding. This is mainly due to Altman's filming style. Unlike so many movies, where the lack of dance skills of the actors have to be covered up, this movie features real dancers, including Neve who got back into dancing shape for this role, and therefore quick cuts are almost completely non-existent. Instead, the camera lingers on the dancers, letting their movements carry the scene rather than the camera's movements. Several times, the camera simply pulls back until the stage fills the screen and it almost seems as if you are looking onstage rather than at a screen.
As the driving forces behind this movie, Campbell and Altman have pulled off a seeming impossibility. They've created a movie with a limited plot, no villain, and yet done it in such a way that you are sucked into it in a very real and compelling way. The end result is an unconventional yet highly entertaining movie that takes you inside a world you may be completely unfamiliar with, but are unlikely to forget.
