British Actress Blog

Ballet Shoes (2007)

Score: 9/10

Director: Sandra Goldbacher

Stars: Emma Watson, Yasmin Paige, Lucy Boynton, Emilia Fox, Victoria Wood.

Ballet Shoes

Emma Watson

Synopsis: The story of three orphan girls ( Pauline, Petrova, and Posy ), adopted by an eccentric explorer, Great Uncle Matthew, and his niece Sylvia, in 1930s London.

Review: Great Uncle Matthew brings home three deferent babies home for adoption. He leave the children with his niece Sylvia Brown ( Emilia Fox ). She raises the children until one day she runs out of money. Nana ( Victoria Wood ) comes up with the idea of renting out the rooms that the family was using for storage. One of the tenets is a dancer named Theo Dane ( Lucy Cohu ) who rents out a room as a dancing hall. She and two other tenets Dr. Smith ( Harriet Walter ) and Dr. Jakes ( Gemma Jones ) wants to teach the girls how to dance and give them a good education.

Sylvia Brown

Emilia Fox

Emma Watson ‘s character is pretty much Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Emma really does know how to break into tears. She does a great job as usual. Her performance is heart felt and full of emotion. Emilia Fox does a great job as the mother figure. Its not surprising though, she is a great British actress. I like her work in the Hit BBC TV series Merlin as ‘Morgause’, an evil witch in league with Morgana Pendragon.

Petrova and Pauline

Yasmin and Emma

The film focuses on the concepts of unity. The unity shows with these women sticking together and helping each other out. Each person has something to offer the group. When a financial problem comes along, they find away to handle it. When they need emotional support, they are there to help each other. The girls work hard. They even work some jobs that they are not very good at in order to pay the bills. So we are seeing a form of Group theory. It seems like the only any of these women could aspire to their dreams is by working together. So Great Uncle Matthew is an explore that drops off some kids on his niece, then leaves for so long that the government believes that he is dead. He sets money aside for Sylvia to raise the girls but she runs out of it. I know this situation is suppose to be out of Matthew’s control but he come off as irresponsible. He’s gone to the point that the women are in financial ruin. Mr. Simpson ( Marc Warren ) come off as unintentionally creepy the way he walks around the house not saying anything. He’s story arc is not so great and its conclusion definitely makes you wonder what the writers where thinking when they wrote this movie. Sadly the film would have been stronger with out him in it.

Pauline Fossil

Emma Watson

This is a good film family friendly movie. Its a very classy film too. Its way better than I was expecting. The movie looks really good, has excellent wardrobe, and set dressing. The cinematography if perfect. The film has excellent use of wide shots, close ups and pans. The movie gets you started on the story right away with visual story telling and some conversation. Just sometimes the pacing is a bit off. It seems to be a run time issue. The movie is well cast and all of the actresses and actors do a solid job. Around the third act the film is unintentionally hilarious, especially when Emma Watson’s character starts having some serious emotional fits. You see her do the same thing when Ron, Harry Potter, and Hermione are at the Yule Ball in Harry Potter films. Due to its family friendly nature, the movie does not give you extreme scenes that would challenge the characters like the movie Colonia (2015) for instance. So the movie can seem a bit silly at times. Some story arcs don’t really serve a propose and some conclusions are contrived. For what the movie is, its well done and very entertaining. Its a good one.

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