- Released: August 25, 2016
- Directed by: Eric Summer, Éric Warin, Mimi Maynard
- Running time: 1 h 29 min
- Rating 3/5
Synopsis
An orphan girl dreams of becoming a true ballerina in Paris.
My Thoughts
The story is basic, just the “follow your dreams”-plot, but it’s executed all right here. You root for this poor girl and jut want her to follow her dreams, even if the way she goes about achieving them isn’t the most morally responsible. Of course there has to be the eventual liar reveal, but it didn’t bother me too much here. It was also nice to see how eventually so many supported her, even her past rival and her strict ballet teacher.
The characters were pretty good, too. Nothing groundbreaking, but they had clear goals and flaws to them. Félicie is a good lead to follow. I really admired her passion for the art of ballet and how she keeps pushing, no matter what. Victor is fun at first and I also greatly enjoyed his character, though I definitely feel like he got pushed aside (sometimes literally by being separated from our main character) a bit too much. He has this arc where he wants to confess his love to Félicie, and you do root for the guy, especially after Félicie hits it off with another dancer when Victor has done so much for her already. You really feel the bond between these characters. As for the others, they’re varying, but usually okay. Odette, Félicie’s friend, was a character I particularly enjoyed. The side characters were usually more one-note, but even they sometimes get their moments to shine, such as the initially-antagonistic people of the orphanage eventually giving in and letting Félicie follow her dream. The main villain was extremely one-note and I couldn’t care less about, but the antagonist Camille, the girl Félicie poses as in order to follow the ballet classes, had a nice moment, too, where she eventually admits that she doesn’t really have as much a passion for dancing and helps our main character in the end. She was very cruel at first, though, so I’m not sure if I like this redemption arc. She literally tossed the one thing Félicie had from her deceased mother away to break it nearly twice.
The animation was surprisingly good. One of the reasons why I didn’t want to check this out when it initially came out was because I thought this would probably just be another cheaply animated movie such as Savva: Heart of the Warrior or something like that. The posters didn’t look very appealing to me, either. But I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it’s no Disney, but it looked really nice and polished. I didn’t spot any jerky movements and, while a bit generic, the animation wasn’t bad by any means.
The rest of the visuals were neat, too. I really love the colors used in this film. If anything, it at least has a very nice color palette to go with it, especially with the warmer colors that are present when Félicie feels at home doing what she loves most. The backgrounds were nothing special, but decent.
The voice acting was nothing groundbreaking, either, but the actors did a good job.
The soundtrack was pleasant on the ears. There’s also a few songs mixed in here which unfortunately weren’t memorable, but they sounded good and were incorporated into the scenes pretty well.
As for the pacing, it was well-done, too.
While I initially thought of this movie to just be another very generic, boring, overly-girly or at worst annoying film, it honestly surprised me. It is definitely not the most outstanding one I’ve reviewed, and the word generic does somewhat come to mind when describing it, but it’s still pretty good! It has a nice soundtrack, good main characters, pleasant visuals and a well-executed story.
I’d say that if you have an hour and a bit to kill and you can find this on a streaming service, it’s worth at least a watch. You might be surprised like I was.
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