In the cinema, ballet has long served as fodder for scenes of horror and brutality. It makes sense: careers are short and there is always another dancer waiting with better feet, a higher jump and – this undeniable thing – youth in the wings. But dance is also a way to show feelings and the inner spirit without words. A body can lose control. It can appear human and transform into something else: scary, tortured, exaggerated. It can harbor horror.
“The Red Shoes” (1948) is an opulent look at a young ballerina rising up and dancing herself to death. New is “Black Swan” (2010), a psychological drama in which another young dancer goes insane during the production of “Swan Lake” in a company. Stereotypes? For sure. Problematic? Yes. But in the case of supernatural horror, it’s not about realism.
The horror in “Suspiria,” in both the 1977 and 2018 versions, involves witches who pursue dance academies. The dancers in Gaspard Noé’s “Climax” are disturbed and take drugs. I like parts of all of these films. They are grown up. So it is with the excellent “Billy Elliot” (2000), and that’s about an 11 year old boy. It shows dance as a form of catharsis: Billy, who grew up in northern England during the grim miners’ strike in 1984, had a reason to dance.
But “Tiny Pretty Things” is cheap: it’s like an 11-year-old trying to act like an adult – and to get dressed. It’s a dirtier version of “Center Stage” (2000), a popular film that turned towards nonsense and that was not well served due to its broad characterizations and stereotypes. Add to this the trauma and agony associated with Flesh and Bone, a Starz miniseries from 2015, and the endless scandal of Gossip Girl.
It should come as no surprise that in “Tiny Pretty Things,” quiet and rehab don’t make a dancer overcome an injury: it’s drugs. One student, Bette, who dances with a broken metatarsal bone, needs more Vicodin. She says to her mother, “I can hobble around on Advil or you can help me get the lift off.”
It gets worse. Much of the hammy dialogue is delivered with a bizarre, manic sense of importance. There are lots of bulging eyes.
