The Dancer

The Dancer is a biopic of Loie Fuller as she rises to fame in turn of the century France. After her benefactor and lover Louis gives her free run of his estate, Fuller begins a dance school. One of her students is Isadora Duncan who quickly becomes famous herself. Duncan and Fuller have a mercurial relationship. Sometimes the are the best of friends and make out in a maze. Sometimes they butt heads because of their different philosophies about dance. Through her career, Fuller has two constants. The first is the pain and physical toll that Fuller’s art takes on her body.The second is her loyal friend and assistant Gabrielle who deserves more focus than the movie gives her.

The Dancer is a beautiful film to look at. As I mentioned in my review of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, there aren’t that many visually stunning WLW films. Even the good ones tend to be so because of writing and character than visuals. The Dancer is an exception to the rule. There’s such care and attention paid to how this film looks. More attention is paid to visuals in period dramas generally as costume and set are things that need to be considered. Beyond this, The Dancer has beautiful cinematography. My question with The Dancer overall though is, is looking pretty enough?

Because while The Dancer looks very nice, the writing lets the movie down. This is such a bland and by-the-numbers biopic. In trying to make a complete, chronological portrait of Loie Fuller, The Dancer bites off more than it can chew. It rushes through events. Her rise to fame happens in about ten minutes. Similarly, when Isadora Duncan is introduced, she goes from being a student of Fuller’s to toast of the town in what seems to be a week. There are a lot of plot points that The Dancer wants to cover in Fuller’s life. By having too many of them, none of them end up receiving enough attention.

Additionally, The Dancer can’t decide where to focus itself. Other than constant scenes reminding us that Fuller suffers for her art, The Dancer can’t decide what is the most important part of Fuller’s life. In particular, Fuller’s relationship with Isadora Duncan seems like it is to take priority in the movie only for Duncan to wander out of the movie before the climax of the film.

Isadora Duncan is the weakest aspect of the movie. Actress Lily-Rose Depp is emblematic of The Dancer’s problems as a whole; she looks pretty but that is not enough. While the camera loves her face, she leaves a lot to be desired as an actress. To be fair to Depp, this character is also poorly written. They offer no insight nor even facts about a character they suddenly choose to focus on. Instead, Isadora Duncan is a young, seductive almost Lolita-esque character there for Fuller and the audience to gaze upon. In the one dramatic scene Depp is given, Isadora asks Loie why Loie bothers to do so much for her. Neither Fuller nor the movie has an answer for what Loie sees in this character who we’re told is a brilliant dancer but never shown. All we’re shown is a beautiful, immature and manipulative girl.

The queerness in The Dancer is due to Isadora Duncan. It’s also disappointingly minimal. Here’s the sum total of WLW stuff in this movie: Isadora generally flirting with Loie, an argument scene in which Isadora tries to kiss Loie and is rebuked, some more flirting this time on the part of Fuller and finally, a make out scene in a maze in which after Loie gets fully naked, Isadora decides that’s far enough and walks away. That’s the last of any WLW content and also the last time Isadora Duncan is in the movie.

It would’ve been smarter to not have Fuller as the point of view character in this story. The criminally underutilized Melanie Thierry as Gabrielle ends up being the most interesting character. Admittedly, this is perhaps more to do with Thierry’s skill as an actress than what the script gives up about this character. As the strongest actress of the main three, Thierry injects what could be a bland character with pathos, sympathy and an unspoken backstory. Thierry plays her devotion to Fuller so brilliantly. I believe this movie might have benefited for seeing Fuller through Gabrielle’s eyes and experiencing the tragedy of Gabrielle never being as important to Fuller as Fuller is to her.

The Dancer is largely disappointing. For all that it looks pretty, there are other things are needed to make a movie good; namely writing and acting. I don’t feel enlightened on the subject of Loie Fuller after watching this biopic. If I wasn’t grading on the curve of WLW films, The Dancer would receive a negative review. But the fact that it is at least competently shot and looks pretty is more than I can say for a lot of WLW films so it gets a mild pass. Still, this movie is neither very good nor very queer. Mostly, it is a series of missed opportunities.

Overall rating: 5.6/10

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