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Best movie of this year hands down!

So much average

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I was able to see this on Netflix streaming movies. I was interested mainly because Emma Watson is in it, right in the middle of the many Harry Potter movies. I was curious to see how she acted in a quite different role, and she did very well.It is set in 1930s London and the costumes, makeup, and cinematography give it an authentic 1930s feel. A nice gentleman who seems only to explore the world inherits a young niece whose parents drown, and as she grows to young adulthood gradually 3 more girls are added. She becomes the legal guardian of them and sees to it that they grow up polite and successful. The younger girls are given the last name of Fossil.Emilia Fox is the guardian, Sylvia Brown. Emma Watson is Pauline Fossil. She is the oldest of the 3 younger orphans and develops with an interest and a flair for acting.Yasmin Paige is the next as Petrova Fossil. She is the left-brain one, more interested in science and particularly aviation. And the youngest, who was my favorite actress here, is red-head Lucy Boynton as Posy Fossil. The only thing she brought with her as a baby were ballet shoes, and with that apparently in her blood becomes obsessed with being a world-famous ballerina.Fine British character actor Richard Griffiths is the Great Uncle Matthew, affectionately called 'GUM'.This is a very nice, pleasant PG movie. It shows the bonding within a family unit when none of them are actually related to each other. It also shows how children can become 'bratty' when they get the big head of success. In the end everyone seems on a very happy track in life.SPOILERS: Sylvia is having a difficult time keeping up with the expenses of Gum's house, and no one has heard from him in 12 years. So she has him declared dead and sells the house. Soon after that he shows up, at the same time that Pauline is offered a movie contract that requires her to move to Hollywood. She is hesitant but does it so that she can help Posy afford to travel to a school for ballet. It turns out Gum had become friends with a famous female pilot who taught him to fly in Argentina, and he teaches Petrova. And to top it all off the nice male boarder marries Sylvia and they head to Hollywood to be with Pauline.

I normally don't like drama, or ballet, but I decided to give this a go anyway.Ballet Shoes takes place in 1930'ies England, and the plot revolves around three girls and how they try to realize their dreams, despite living in poverty. It's a drama film, although not overly dramatic.The film opens in the home of archaeologist and adventurer Matthew – later called Gum, Great uncle Matthew – who travels the world and brings home little souvenirs; parentless children in need of new homes, which his niece Sylvia are given to take care of while he's away.The main story begins when the three girls – Pauline, Petrova and Posey – have become a little older and are going to school. Their adoptive mother Sylvia can no longer afford paying for their educations and they have to leave school, and, to even afford living in their house, start renting out some of the rooms. Quite conveniently, two of the guests are retired teachers who offer to give the girls full education, free of charge.The plot centers around the three sisters' talents and their attempts to make something out of them and fulfill their dreams. This is the problem with this film; there is such a lot to make a film from, such a lot of plot material and characters to develop, and yet the producers feel the urge to squeeze in four or five quite detailed life stories in an hour and a half. The result is that the film seems rushed, they can't focus on developing one character for more than a minute at a time. They try to make all the characters interesting and well-developed, but excel with none of them. And ironically, the one they give most time to develop, Pauline and her acting, isn't the one you'd think the story ought to be about; Posey is the ballet dancer. I think they should've made the film two hours long; give the character more time to develop and don't rush the story. When you see how much they squeeze into these 90 minutes, you notice it wouldn't have been very long-winded even at 120 minutes; they have a lot of story and characters to develop, yet don't take the time they need. As it is now, most of the personality changes seem unnatural. For example, Pauline becomes quite the diva after her successes on stage and think everyone else should help her with everything and allow her to "save her strength", but this comes so suddenly and goes away just as fast, so that it only seems like a last minute idea, despite Watson's acting.And speaking of acting, it is the actors that really keep the film together. Ballet Shoes gives us a chunk of Britain's prime actors; from veterans like Richard Griffiths, Eileen Atkins and Gemma Jones, to newborn stars like Emma Watson, to those in between like Emilia Fox. Three of the actors, Griffiths, Watson and Jones, have all been in the Harry Potter movies, where they played Uncle Vernon, Hermione Granger and Madam Pomfrey respectively; here they take on the roles of Gum, Pauline Fossil and Dr Jakes. Emilia Fox, from Silent Witness, also takes on a leading role in the film as Sylvia, the girls' adoptive mother. The actors all do a great job, they make the characters believable despite the film only allowing them to develop a blink at a time.The editing (in the parts that don't feel rushed), the camera work and the music, together with the actors, all give the film a unique atmosphere. However, one thing that is hard to ignore, at least for us who don't normally enjoy pure drama films, is the lack of conflict.Sure the family is poor, and sure they find it hard to afford new clothes for the theatre, the rent and all the whatnot. And everything doesn't run perfectly smooth for the girls when they try to fulfill their dreams; but it never feels as if they might actually fail. The obstacles they face never seem too hard to beat, that beating them actually is a challenge. The film is so quick to skip between scenes and plot lines that the characters don't get time to actually face any obstacles, any such scene is cut out to be able to get film under 90 minutes.Atop of all that, the film is full of wonderful coincidences that make sure all characters live happily ever after, again completely without conflict or resistance, without rivalry between any characters and so forth. At times it gets so sugar sweet and happy that I can't stand it, but the quick cutting is there to save me from too much happiness. If your parents told you you should stop watching such violent and scary films when you were little, and said you ought to see something happier and lighter, they probably meant Ballet Shoes. It's virtually void of conflict, at least the kind that has time to get you engaged in it, and absolutely everyone lives happily ever after. Not too dramatic for a drama film.On the whole I think they should've made the film longer, giving the characters more time to develop, and they should've added some kind of proper conflict or believable obstacles, to make story more interesting. It's absolutely not a horrible movie, if you like drama you'll probably enjoy a lot more than I did. But for us who want a little bit of obstacles for the main characters to overcome, that they might actually fail at something, it's not a film I'd recommend. I've seen it twice now in three years, and it's going to take a lot to make me watch is again.6/10

The story opens in London in the 1930s, as an eccentric explorer (Richard Griffiths) returns from his adventures with three orphaned baby girls to be raised by his niece (Emilia Fox), while he goes off on another long trip. As the girls become teenagers, they enroll in a theatrical school hoping to earn enough money to support themselves: Posy wants to be a ballerina and Pauline (Emma Watson) wants to be an actress, but Petrova just wants to fly airplanes.Adapted from a well-loved children's book, this made for BBC film suffers from a script full of holes and poor direction. We meet a houseful of characters but never get to know any of them well. Their dialogue is lifeless and lacking in real emotion; except for the wonderful Ms Fox they merely take turns tediously reciting their lines and each scene falls flat.Emma Watson ("Harry Potter") looks nervous and awkward and her character, like the others, is superficial. She's supposed to be a great actress, but this isn't shown; Posy is supposed to be a gifted dancer, but again, we just have to take their word for it. Pauline, the aviator, is ignored altogether. Recommended only for those who enjoyed the novel.

The reason why I actually saw this movie is cause a girlfriend of mine is a die-hard Harry Potter fan, loves the movies and will look every movie the cast of HP has a part in. So watching this one with her, I had no expectations cause I didn't know what this film was about and to be honest, when it was over I still had no clue whatsoever what this was supposed to be. A drama, a comedy, a vehicle to boost some young talents careers? I had no clue. So after 90 minutes of twists and turns, unlikely coincidences and a kind of rushed happy end I was sitting there uttering the words "now this is bogus!". It's not that it was a bad movie per se, we have a very unlikely story, a very good but also very very stereotypically cast set of actors that act over the top, a weird storyline and lots of dancing. So I didn't have the feeling that it was a bad movie, but I still had no idea what this was supposed to be. The only thing I really took from it was that whoever is to direct the next film starring Emma Watson has to botox her forehead back to the stoneage cause her eyebrows have to stop moving when she is acting. I mean I ended up staring at them cause even though there is lots of dancing in the film her eyebrows are the things that move the most. On the other hand, it has been worse in the HP movies. However, it wasn't until I spoke with another friend of mine - another Harry Potter fan and mom of 4 kids - and complained about this film that I was told that this is an adaption of a child book classic. I suppose this was the godmother of all "duuuuh" moments someone can have, especially after I was lectured for a solid 15 minutes about how great the book is how her kids love it how much they can learn about the importance of hard work and taking care of each other and yadda yadda yadda plus just cause I'm a guy and not into the Harry Potter stuff I still have no right to badmouth the girl playing Hermione cause it's her fave character in the books. So, knowing that it's a kids book the stereotypical characters make sense and with that in mind the actors casted for the roles actually fit perfect. Richard Griffiths is befuddled and funny as always, Marc Warren can be the shy guy once more just to name a few. And so finally, the twist and turns and the happy end make sense too, so does the fact that I couldn't understand the story, cause it's made for little girls in the 1930s. I guess I really dodged a bullet there, for a few days I thought I was just stupid.