“The American” - Film Review
If film has taught us anything, it’s that the life of a ballerina is terrifying. From Black Swan to Suspiria, the film industry has created the impression that life as a ballerina is hell. Honestly, hell might be nicer than some of the ballet schools depicted on screen. These are powder kegs filled with young ambitious people who are willing to do anything and everything to succeed. The instructors know this and abuse it for the sake of continuing their legacy. Even if they are no longer at the top, they maintain their importance if their students rise through the ranks. The American (also titled Joika in some countries) is based on the true story of Joy Womack, who was the first American woman to graduate from the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow.
Joy (Talia Ryder) is fifteen years old and living in Texas. She has grand dreams of being a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Company. When the call comes in with an invitation to train at the Bolshoi Academy, she accepts without hesitation. Joy is now thrust into a brand new world and dances under the tutelage of Tatiyana Volkova (Diane Kruger), once a prima ballerina, now an instructor. The American follows Joy as she deals with the pressures of ballet, jealous classmates, and what happens when talent is not enough.
courtesy of New Zealand Film Commission
For such a beautiful art form, there is a brutality in ballet that The American really exploits. We hear the cracking of bones, see the bloody feet, and can almost feel the stabbing pains that Joy and the other dancers endure. There is a violence inherent to the art of ballet. The way the dancers have to beat and break their shoes, light them on fire, and abuse their bodies in an attempt to achieve perfection. Instructors too often use violence to correct their students’ postures and positions. The American shies away from none of the realities of this difficult artistic pursuit. While movies like Suspiria and Black Swan can hide behind their fantastical elements, The American is planted firmly in bleak reality. The Bolshoi Academy is all stark, dreary fluorescent lights. It’s cruel and isolating, a reflection of what it takes to survive there. Friendship gets you nowhere, but enemies will fuel you to be better. To be the best.
courtesy of New Zealand Film Commission
“What will you do for the role? That is what you must ask yourself over and over,” Tatiyana tells her class. When Joy arrives at the Academy, she’s all wide-eyed optimism. Her dream of dancing with the Bolshoi Company is within her reach and if she just works hard enough, she’ll be able to make it onto that stage. However, she quickly learns that her talent got her here, but it no longer matters. Whether she makes it or not is based on the value to Russia of bringing an American into the Bolshoi Company. Despite the fact she is fighting an uphill battle, Joy begins to take increasingly more drastic measures to reach her dream. How can you blame her? She was raised to believe that if she works hard enough, she can attain anything, but that doesn't account for the politics involved in ballet. Joy is fighting against an institution that does not want her to succeed. Her desire to achieve perfection may even kill her.
Where do you draw the line? When you have a passion, an unrealistic goal that will take every fiber of your being to attain, how do you know when your pursuit becomes unhealthy? It’s a line that Joy loses sight of fairly quickly in The American. The hopeful Joy the audience meets at the beginning is a far cry from the broken-down Joy seen at the end of the film. Ryder’s physical transformation is unsettling as she shrinks into a shell of herself. The American asks a lot of Ryder, but she’s more than capable of taking on the challenge. While many may simplify The American into the ballet version of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, the film is a story of obsession all its own. The American celebrates such a delicate art, but is a bloody tale about the cost of obsessively reaching for perfection.
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