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Seattle Times
Movies set in the
ballet world face some overwhelming challenges. And the most
difficult of these is that the bar -- or, as balletomanes
would say, the barre -- is set very high indeed. "The Red
Shoes," the 1948 classic from Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger, is not just a ballet movie -- it's one of
the most beautiful films ever made.
The story of a young dancer
(flame-haired Moira Shearer, of Britain's Sadler's Wells
Ballet) who must choose between love and art, "The Red
Shoes" dazzles with its color, its emotion and the wildly
inventive "Red Shoes" ballet at its center.
Movie Reviews UK 1997
There is much more to The Red Shoes
than dancing. The dramatic aspects are both convincingly
played and appropriate to the characters, as they grapple
with combining life and art. Surprisingly, to contemporary
viewers, the ballet professionals were rather good at acting
- especially Moira Shearer. Other aspects of the movie are
equally strong, such as the photography, the score
(including excerpts from classic ballets) and the
continental locations. The directing team of Powell and
Pressburger apply their masterful touch to both the small
details and the whole picture; a supreme symbiosis. Finally,
the central 15-minute ballet is fantastic and surrealistic,
using the camera to give us s viewpoint among the dancers
and to provide special effects. Great stuff indeed.
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The Guardian
Tom Hooper's
richly enjoyable and handsomely produced movie about George
VI's struggle to cure his stammer is a massively
confident crowd-pleaser. What looks at first like an
conventional Brit period drama about royals is actually a
witty and elegant new perspective on the abdication crisis
and on the dysfunctional quiver at the heart of the Windsors
and of prewar Britain. It suggests there was a time when a
member of the royal household experimented with
psychoanalysis &endash; disguised as speech therapy.
Screen Daily
The moving and elegantly staged
The King's Speech will be a strong contender with awards
season looming, driven by wonderful performances by Colin
Firth and Geoffrey Rush who strike up the most unlikely
of friendships as a troubled Royal and his Aussie
speech-therapist. It has all of the right credentials to
strike a chord with audiences fond of well-written period
dramas that also happen to reveal some insight into the
British royal family.
The Oscars 2011
Nominated for 12 awards, including
for Best Film, and Colin Firth for Best Actor.
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