The Company

Directed by Robert Altman

At the barre in expanding numbers 1/23/2004

1.5 *

In his life-long and ongoing effort to subvert his film career, director Robert Altman has stayed true to pattern by following the relatively successful Gosford Park with The Company, an inert examination of backstage at the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago with little to recommend save some terrific dance sequences. Long after you will have forgotten everything else about the movie, these bits remain suspended like marshmallows within The Company’s insignificant jello plot. The movie most resembles Pret-a-Porter (the movie which followed The Player and Short Cuts—two of Altman’s best—was also the movie that revealed that people in the world of fashion are superficial and that pretty people walking around nude can be dull).

Actress Neve Campbell created the story and acted as one of the producers while taking the role of an up-and-coming company member who is beginning to dance more leading roles while starting a romance with a Chicago chef (James Franco). And that is pretty much it. The dominance of the backstage/rehearsal scenes would be better suited to a Frederick Wiseman documentary (and one can say that Wiseman himself has already delivered “the” backstage dance doc in Ballet). The home life shots in Campbell’s apartment look more like out-takes from Company producer John Wells similarly Chicago-set ER with dancers subbing for the doctors.

While I am not saying that every dance movie has to show them as back-stabbing bitches (though even a few well-worn clichés would enliven this), these are highly-driven people with substantial ambition and there is significant dramatic potential in the world of their off-stage lives. Part of the problem may be that everybody is too nice.

The diva declines roles rather than risking her star-status in an inappropriate piece, the ingénue patiently waits her turn, and the company leader (Malcolm McDowell) who could be performed as an evil genius Fosse-type a la The Red Shoes is a juggler earnestly trying to “handle” the dancers, budget, and choreographers all while trying to assert his own artistic vision.

Another problem with this movie is one that occurred to me during a screening of Miracle—the upcoming movie detailing the 1980 gold medal run of the United States Olympic hockey team. Watching hockey can be terrifically exciting; watching hockey practice can be an interminable series of drills which are worse for the spectator than for the participant—who can at least justify the use of time as making one better at the game.

So what we have with The Company is two things you do not associate with a Robert Altman movie: the people are too nice and the inner world he wants us to glimpse is hardly worth the effort to look.

–Bill Henry

Related Reading:

The Independent Movie Poster Book

The Film Encyclopedia 6e: The Complete Guide to Film and the Film Industry

The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, Updated & Revised (Film Critics of the New York Times)

Firefly: Music from the Original Television Soundtrack

The Art of Watching Films with Tutorial CD-ROM