Friday, October 22, 2021

Birds of Paradise: a mediocre wannabe artsy endeavor

Greetings, commies!

If you have Amazon Prime, you have probably been flooded with movie suggestions. I noticed that the ones worth watching are quickly migrating to paid platforms like Shudder. The free stuff is ... sometimes worth watching if you are in a mood to find production flaws. Birds of Paradise is one of such flicks. I watched it because I am a former dancer myself, and I always wonder what stereotypes the director will explore.

Kate is an aspiring ballerina who is given a scholarship to attend a prestigious ballet school in Paris. Upon arrival her confidence is tested by a fellow dancer, Marine who recently lost her brother. While confrontational at first, their relationship evolves into an emotionally charged, competitive union beset by lies and sexual awakening as they risk it all to join the Opéra national de Paris.

My thoughts

The dull title aside, the writing itself is very lazy and clumsy. The novice actresses try to do their best with the script, but some of the dialogue is just at the level of a sixth grade creative writing workshop. Is it so hard to write a screenplay about ballet without incest, drug use (we are not told what drugs those are) or girl on girl action? My biggest complaint is that there are so many implausible twists and loose endings that do not end up getting tied towards the end. Characters appear and vanish without serving any kind of purpose. I don't know where the movie was filmed, but the sanitized set is anything but modern Paris. Maybe, someone who has never been to Paris won't know any different.