Streaming Review

Birds of Paradise review – unpredictable and enigmatic ballet thriller

Sarah Adina Smith’s tenacious film shines a spotlight on the gruelling underbelly of a highly competitive Parisian ballet company

A trippy nightmare. An impressive dance showcase. A psychological game of torment. Birds of Paradise shifts between cinematic identities with the ease of ballerinas moving between plies and mid-air spins. This film from writer-director Sarah Adina Smith, adapted from A.K. Small’s 2019 novel Bright Burning Stars, combines the cut-throat feminine energy of Thoroughbreds with the fiery competitiveness of Whiplash and Black Swan.

“Blessed is she who falls. Blessed is she who rises again.” A sentiment engraved on the heart of every ballerina who passes through Paris’ prestigious dance academy. As the sun rises over Paris, the elite prima ballerinas have already been awake for hours in rigorous rehearsals, their malleable limbs bending at ungodly angles with gravity-defying strength, all in the hopes of winning a contract for the Paris Opera's ballet company.

Fresh from Virginia, 18-year-old Kate (Diana Silvers) arrives on the doorstep of her new home with a scholarship, burning ambition, and a neatly packed bag in hand. After a prickly introduction with fellow dancer Marine (Kristine Froseth), which sees Kate receiving a roadhouse slap to the face, the pair discover they’re sharing a room. A one-bed scenario sets up an enemies-to-lovers narrative, though, like everything in this film, nothing is quite as it seems.

With an interwoven exploration of female sexuality, Birds of Paradise’s perfervid dancers engage in a ferocious and unyielding battle to emerge victorious. They’re willing to sacrifice everything, making even an encouraging smile inherently suspicious. Admittedly, Smith bundles so much nuance into this script that a lot goes unexplored. A narrative arc centred on Marine, who is grieving the loss of her brother and dance partner after his suicide, goes off in a wild direction that would have been better suited to a series format.

Yet in its cinematic format, Birds of Paradise is led by its subversive aesthetics. Encased in the white walls of the circular ballet training room, with oval windows that make the rehearsal space feel like a spaceship, the dancers appear as extraterrestrials; otherworldly creatures that move in an unfounded way. Smith’s camera pursues, capturing the ballerina’s movements through an intimate lens that glides as smoothly as they do. Beneath this elegance, however, Smith trains on grimaces, strained muscles and damaged toes. These morbidly dark flickers, sharing the frame with dainty grace, allow the dark thematics of the film to juxtapose the conventional, refined femininity of ballet.

The film’s most visually divisive moments venture into drug-induced sequences. The two young women, popping colourful pills and donning Venetian masks, step onto a hazy, glitter-covered dance floor. Tripping with flailing limbs, they still look ethereal, glowing under the neon blue light. “Dance is a ritual of seduction,” Madam Brunelle (Jacqueline Bisset) reminds her students, and over the course of the Birds of Paradise, Kate and Marine discover female sexuality is the most powerful dance they can partake in.

This tenacious film, packed with lean bodies bending and bowing to reach success, incubates an intense narrative of eroding ambition. Ultimately, it forgoes the depth its subjects need to emerge fully-fledged, but Silvers dazzles nonetheless. She was magnifying in Booksmart, but Birds of Paradise sees her take on a lead role with the sharpest of poise, showcasing her mesmerising possibilities as a proper star.

Birds of Paradise is available on Amazon Prime from 24 September.

Where to watch

More Reviews...

The Innocent review – 60s-inspired heist movie with an existential twist

In his fourth feature film, writer-director Louis Garrel explores with wit and tenderness the risk and worth of second chances

Baato review – Nepal’s past and future collide in an immersive, fraught documentary

A mountain trek intertwines with a road-building project, granting incisive, if underpowered, insight into a much underseen world

The Beanie Bubble review – a grim new low for the “corporate biopic” genre

With none of the saving graces of Tetris, Air, or Barbie, this ambition-free look at the Beanie Baby craze is pure mediocrity

Everybody Loves Jeanne review – thoroughly modern fable of grief, romantic confusion, and climate anxiety

Celine Deveaux's French-Portuguese debut can be too quirky for its own good, but a fantastically written lead character keeps it afloat

Features

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Little Women to Sergio Leone

From classics to cult favourites, our team highlight some of the best one-off screenings and re-releases showing this week in the capital

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Coppola to Cross of Iron

From classics to cult favourites, our team highlight some of the best one-off screenings and re-releases showing this week in the capital

20 Best Films of 2023 (So Far)

With the year at the halfway point, our writers choose their favourite films, from daring documentaries to box office bombs

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Mistress America to The Man Who Wasn’t There

From classics to cult favourites, our team highlight some of the best one-off screenings and re-releases showing this week in the capital