SIFF Review: Mao’s Last Dancer

This movie is lousy with Oscar nominees: director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies, Breaker Morant) and writer Jan Sardi (Shine, The Notebook). I wish it were like Breaker Morant and Shine, whose story it resembles a bit, but it’s actually more like The Notebook and Driving Miss Daisy. If you despise sentiment, go elsewhere; if you embrace it, this one’s for you.

It’s the possibly sanitized story of the dancer Li Cunxin, plucked from his remote Chinese village as a child, sent to ballet boot camp in Beijing, then historically sent to spend a season with the Houston Ballet. When the star dancer is injured, can Li possibly fill his shoes? Can he find happiness with a sweet but ambitious blonde virgin ballerina? Will thugs at the Chinese embassy prevent his defection to America? Chi Cao’s dancing looks damn good to me, filmed in long shots and demonstrating actual dance pros at work, and the backstage drama of the ballet is absorbing. Not one surprise is in store, but you know just what you’ll get, and get it. Seattle-spawned actor Kyle MacLachlan is square-jawed as Li’s Texas lawyer, Bruce Greenwood even more square-jawed as Li’s opera director benefactor with an agenda. Beresford is the only movie director who also directs major operas and stage works, so he’s got a real feel for the material.