Ballet 422 (2015) Movie Review

Documentary, Drama, Hollywood, Movie Review, Music, Sport,

{[['']]}

Ballet 422 (2015) Movie Review
Rating:     Rated PG for brief language
Production:    
Genres:     Drama, Sport, Music, Documentary
Country:     USA
Language:     English
Director:      Jody Lee Lipes
Stars: Justin Peck, Tiler Peck, Sterling Hyltin

Critic Reviews for Ballet 422 - MDBReviews

Ballet 422 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com

The A.V. Club
“Art isn't easy,” wrote Stephen Sondheim, and in Jody Lee Lipes' bleak beauty of a documentary, the act of creation is a resolutely joyless one - a tedious grind with little lasting reward.

Village Voice Zachary Wigon
Ballet 422 is more visually sumptuous than most narratives you're likely to see this year, featuring careful compositions that make watching the film an aesthetic experience as much as an intellectual one.

The Dissolve Noel Murray
A documentary that's both impressionistic and informative-admiring the magic of dance even in its formative stages, while also turning the making of art into a kind of procedural.

The New York Times A.O. Scott
Ballet 422 elegantly conveys the complex collaborations behind even a relatively modest production, and the toil and discipline that somehow deliver, for the patrons on opening night, a seamless spectacle of grace.

Variety Ronnie Scheib
The documentary moves with the same fluidity that characterizes Peck's choreography.

Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen
Jody Lee Lipes shapes the footage into an intimate symphony of poetically shaped bodies that contrast poignantly with uncertain faces.

New York Post Farran Smith Nehme
A delightfully immersive look at how a ballet is created, Jody Lee Lipes' documentary is a stark contrast to the psycho theatrics of something like “Black Swan.”

RogerEbert.com Glenn Kenny
The irony of Peck's position is, while he's on the rise as a choreographer, as a dancer he's in a rather more plebian position, which provides the movie with a punchline that Lipes neither overstates nor shrugs off.

The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
The doc's structure is a countdown to opening night, but planning goes smoothly enough that little drama accompanies that ticking clock.

Tribune News Service Roger Moore
There's no drama, no conflict, and apparently no one told director Jody Lee Lipes that even documentaries require some of that to be rendered watchable.