The Company – Das Ensemble (2003)

The Company – Das Ensemble: Directed by Robert Altman. With Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell, James Franco, Barbara E. Robertson. Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who’s poised to become a principal performer.

“The Company is far below the level of Robert Altmanu0026#39;s best efforts. In contrast with Gosford Parku0026#39;s endlessly fascinating chatter weaving an intricate web of intrigues and secrets, thereu0026#39;s much stretching and dancing, but very little delving into the backgrounds or relationships of the principals. Thereu0026#39;s hardly what you could call a plot. There are only a few strong characters. All you really get to hold things together somehow or provide some sense of continuity is a series of things that go wrong:u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003en(1) Among the many dance `numbers,u0026#39; the one that stands out is the first, an outdoor performance featuring the Hollywood actress Neve Campbell (Scream 1,2, and 3, Wild Things), a trained dancer and the force behind the making of the whole film. A thunderstorm comes to buffet the audience and the dancers. The dancers bravely go on and the dance — so weu0026#39;re told, anyway — is a triumph. The entire sequence is dominated by a sense of impending disaster. A slippery stage could have meant serious injury. One also wonders about damage to valuable string instruments being played in the open to accompany the dance. All this is extremely distracting and excruciating to watch. Altman does succeed though in giving us a sense of what performances are like from the companyu0026#39;s point of view — struggles with physical problems; successful efforts (at best) to avert disaster.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003en(2) An injury forces a new lead dancer to give up a role. This happens twice. We realize that dancers constantly face injury, or, as often, are dangerously in denial that they have one.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(3) Another sort of injury prevents a dancer from performing the whole of a `number.u0026#39; This happens to Neve Campbell at the end of the movie. Itu0026#39;s just an arm injury, so not career-threatening, but enough to require a quick replacement by a stand-in.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(4) A young man is replaced, but only for the latter part of a dance heu0026#39;s in — because his energy seems to flag at that point in the performance. This nonetheless results in a terribly bruised ego for the young man and his union rep promises to lodge a formal protest. We get a sense of the constant threats to the ego in such an arbitrarily run system, along with the surprising news that union redress may be available in such cases.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(5) One of the guys in the company takes a new girlfriend. This time again itu0026#39;s Neve Campbell whou0026#39;s the `injuredu0026#39; one, and at a post-performance celebration she delivers an `I was the last to knowu0026#39; speech to the bad boy. I saw nods of agreement from dancerly-looking audience members during this moment.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(6) The aging female lead dancer – sheu0026#39;s 43 – repeatedly protests about too-challenging new dances and refuses to make changes in the choreography of old ones. This potentially interesting, possibly tragic, theme of aging in what is really one of the worldu0026#39;s most demanding sports is, however, only briefly touched on.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(7) An argument occurs between the director and one dancer, who hates choreography of a dance heu0026#39;s in, in which men wearing skirts `give birthu0026#39; — and the director instantly reverses what he said about how to perform this moment the day before. The director is adamant, the dancer has lost his cool, and the conversation breaks down. He frequently ends unsatisfactory conversations by dismissing his interlocutor. The directoru0026#39;s rule is autocratic and rarely challenged. However the company does get mild revenge toward the end in a mock restaging of the seasonu0026#39;s events at a party.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003enAll this adds up to something so generic and uninteresting as emotional truth or human experience that you are deeply grateful when at least the main dancer character, Neve Campbell, gets hooked up with a cook boyfriend, the intriguing James Franco. Youu0026#39;re thankful for one young male movie star in the piece, because the real dancer `actorsu0026#39; – as usual – have very little presence or ability as actors. All James Franco gets to do is smile, kiss the girl, take off his shirt, and break some eggs. He does these things with lots of charm and charisma, but these are just crumbs tossed to us. The point however seems to be that dancers donu0026#39;t have time for much more than quick sex; itu0026#39;s like smoking a cigarette, something squeezed in.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003enAltmanu0026#39;s casts are usually heavy with talent. This time there are only three leads, Campbell, McDowell, and Franco. Ironically only the least used, Franco, has any real appeal.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMs. Campbell is little more than bustling and workmanlike. She has a few minutes with her pushy stage mother that provide some sense of relationships outside the company, but itu0026#39;s not enough.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYou will have a lot of trouble with this movie if you donu0026#39;t like Malcolm McDowell. As the `Italianu0026#39; company director Alberto Altonelli, he is brusque, bossy, obtrusive — really just a flaming a**hole with a lot of power to abuse. Is this how dance companies work? Whereu0026#39;s the genius? Why does young Franco have more charisma and sex appeal? And whatu0026#39;s this about a ceremony in which the blatantly English McDowell gets an award for `honoring the Italian-American communityu0026#39;? Okay; letu0026#39;s pretend that heu0026#39;s Italian. But do we have to pretend he has no English accent? If that werenu0026#39;t bad enough, his little speech about not discouraging their sons from becoming ballet dancers is jarring and crude, like all his speeches: itu0026#39;s the height of ingratitude, and you wonder how anyone so undiplomatic could get money for his company. Is it just possible that McDowell is a jarring and crude actor? His performance is wooden and unsubtle. All he has to qualify for this role is forcefulness. Granted, he has that. But his scenes are nothing but irritations.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is, at best, a generic treatment of an American ballet company. But it fails even on that level. How come none of the male dancers, not one, is shown to be gay? Isnu0026#39;t that a bit unrealistic about the culture of dance? Why the pretense that theyu0026#39;re all straight, vying to have sex with the female dancers in the company?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNeveu0026#39;s partner after their triumph in the rain has a private improv session unwinding to a Bach solo cello suite. Itu0026#39;s rather fun – and would have worked better if it had been allowed to run by itself and not been constantly intercut with the scene of Neve in her apartment – a huge Hollywood-style creation right by the `Elu0026#39; with a glam bath. The improvised Bach session makes you realize that Flash Dance was better than this. There was another movie about a dance company, featuring real dancers again, that was better than this. It had a bit more plot, and perhaps better dances; the people seemed a tad more real as people – and yet it wasnu0026#39;t a great movie. Altmanu0026#39;s film has spectacular dance sequences at the beginning and the end but theyu0026#39;re just staging, not great dance, and theyu0026#39;re window dressing to cover up the emptiness of the whole production.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you love dance and/or Altman youu0026#39;ll doubtless have to see this picture, but you wonu0026#39;t be watching a particularly memorable ballet movie or getting Altman even at his average level.”