Providing ample opportunities to showcase the beauties and horrors of the human body, ballet and dance is frequently examined in cinema because of its elaborate artistic and metaphoric potential. Such is the case with Sarah Adina Smith’s “Birds of Paradise,” a sensuous drama filled to the brim with visually distinctive, and grandiose displays of technique and physical rigor. The film follows American ballet students Kate (Diana Silvers) and Marine (Kristine Froseth), both of whom are competing for the top prize in an elite student ballet competition which captures the winner a contract with the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet Company. Though at first Kate and Marine clash bitterly, as the competition heats up, so does their relationship, and soon the two are inseparable —but there can only be one winner, and the tantalizing prospect of victory puts a strain on their fledgling relationship. Though it may pale in inevitable comparison to Darren Aronofsky’s similarly sapphic 2010 psychological horror “Black Swan,” “Birds of Paradise” is a stylish if aimless exploration of grief and passion anchored by two solid performances from its young leads.
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Leaning hard on traditional ballet cliches (like ballerinas being cold-hearted cutthroat young women with eating disorders) and juxtaposing them with often jarring and trippy drug-induced dream sequences that heavily feature interpretive dance, “Birds of Paradise” is an odd mix of both narrative and visual components that don’t entirely work in harmony, but also aren’t detrimentally disjointed enough to result in a lackluster final product: instead, the film is just middling. Not quite experimental or bold enough to fully commit to its dalliances with the power of interpretive/modern dance, but also not conventionally interesting enough to stand on the strength of the writing alone.
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Such a noncommittal end result might leaves “Birds of Paradise” feeling confused when it comes to sense of self, but not entirely lacking in merit — though it may be muddled, the characters are still cohesively written to provide a compelling enough narrative. “Birds Of Paradise” features dueling protagonists who share fairly equal screen time —the awkward, lanky Kate (Silvers), a scholarship recipient from Virginia, and the chic, cutthroat Marine (Froseth) the school’s strongest dancer and the daughter of the United States Ambassador to France.
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Though Kate starts out as the green-behind-the-gills underdog hoping to work hard, keep her head down, and earn her way to the top, when she and Marine are unknowingly assigned as roommates, her new life in Paris begins to take on a more risk-driven edge: she begins attending underground dance clubs with Marie, taking drugs to help her loosen up during rehearsal, and even begins to take “extracurricular lessons” with Marine’s ex-boyfriend Felipe (Daniel Camargo). While initially the sudden lifestyle change brings both women closer together and helps Kate improve in the ballet school’s rankings, things truly take a turn for the worse when Marine reveals to Kate her tragic past surrounded in mystery, which then Kate weaponizes against her in a fit of rage when she finds out that Marine’s parents pulled the scholarship money that made it possible for Kate to train in Paris.
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By the time the end credits roll, their roles have been almost entirely reverse, and the film does a remarkable job of making this gradual shift with both young women feel seamless and natural, not at all clunky like some of the script’s weaker moments. Where the scenes at the underground dance club — where much of the film’s trippiest and most artistic, dance-heavy sequences take place — feel like a shoehorned in afterthought to set “Birds of Paradise” apart from most conventional ballet dramas, the film’s character-driven elements work much more effortlessly (and successfully) in crafting some sort of cinematic identity.
This is also thanks in major part to the duo of leading performances from Silvers and Froseth, both of whom sell their characters with equal vulnerability, enthusiasm, and (when needed) icy brutality. Silvers in particular is a late-game scene stealer — her statuesque figure makes for a very believable ballerina-in-training, and the hair and wardrobe does a remarkable job of transforming her unique, elegant features from editorial to Kate’s specific brand of frumpy. She makes for a believable up-and-comer but truly shines when Kate goes full-tilt into near villainy in the film’s last act, and when playing across Froseth’s more open, vulnerable Marine, they work in harmony to propel “Birds of Paradise” beyond the script’s weaker moments.
Though by no means revolutionary or even all that memorable, “Birds of Paradise” is a solid, if underbaked exploration of the beauty and power of dance, the combative world of European ballet, and the strain of losing friendship at the cost of power. While the film’s more artistic sequences feel out of place and not entirely thought through, Diana Silvers and Kristine Froseths’ performances make the ballet dram compelling, though not entirely en pointe. [B-]