Have you ever felt like a movie was made just for you? Pretty Lethal is a B-movie splatter horror, a violent action flick full of blood and spectacular fight choreography, written, directed, produced, and starring women, centered on a small group of ballerinas who fight like UFC champions: a dream come true for this writer. For everyone else, it’s a film with a highly original premise that finally does justice to the toughest category of athletes in the universe: classical dancers. “In the heart of every ballerina flows the blood of a warrior. They transform pain into beauty, chaos into precision, bodies into art. All that sweat, blood, and sacrifice to make a dream come true,” recites Uma Thurman’s voiceover in the film’s opening seconds, as the camera frames a dancer’s feet slipped into a pair of worn-out pointe shoes and then the sweat-drenched neck of another.
And he’s right, because classical dancers don’t just undergo grueling training like other athletes; they don’t just learn to move elegantly and gracefully even when pushed to their limits; they don’t just use their bodies as a form of artistic expression: they embrace the only discipline that requires constant dedication to… torture. Of course, we’re not talking about K-pop fan routines; we’re talking about extremely difficult choreographies performed by people capable of jumping and doing a dozen pirouettes on their toes. That is, balancing their entire weight on their toenails. Many action heroes, from Jean-Claude Van Damme to Michelle Yeoh, are former dancers. And Pretty Lethal, directed by Vicky Jewson of The Witcher: Blood Origin and produced by Kelly McCormick, is also and above all a tribute to these incredibly strong women, created by someone (Kate Freund, a former dancer) who has experience in the field and knows how martial arts and dance are two sides of the same coin.
And after this essential introduction, let’s take a step back. The outcast Bones (Maddie Ziegler, the dancer from Sia’s music videos), the rich and spoiled Princess (Lana Condor), the God-fearing Grace (Avantika), and sisters Chloe (Millicent Simmonds) and Zoe (Iris Apatow) form a quintet preparing a routine for a competition to be held in Budapest, under the guidance of their teacher Thorna. The typical rivalry among aspiring prima ballerinas is exacerbated by the social divide between Bones and Princess, who bicker over everything even as they ride the bus through the forest separating them from the Hungarian theater.
Stranded by the aforementioned bus, they are welcomed into a decadent and picturesque venue owned—coincidentally—by a former ballerina, the statuesque Devora (all too so, as Uma Thurman is 5’11” and classical dancers over 5’7” are already extremely rare), who has furnished the villa like a museum in honor of her defunct career. This modern, equally egocentric, and embittered Baby Jane immediately takes them, seemingly, under her protective wing. Soon the girls realize they are in a criminal den and have little chance of getting out alive. To do so, they’ll have to put aside their differences and join forces against hordes of gangsters, transforming into killer dancers (Abigail, watch out).
Their athletic training, supernatural strength and speed in their legs, boundless resilience, and skill with blades (utility knives, as well as scissors, needles, and thread, are used routinely and serve to “break” the tips), along with their pain tolerance, make them perfect fighting machines. The film has no other narrative pretensions (the subplot of Bones and Princess as enemies/friends and the drama surrounding Devora’s Lady Tsukikage are barely more than hinted at) other than to document the heroines’ efforts to escape a version of Hostel that is just as extreme, but without Roth’s revolting taste for perversion. To the notes of an irresistible and vaguely blasphemous soundtrack that blends Rhythm Is A Dancer with Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Bones & co perform solos and duets—and a quintet of little swans—transforming dance steps into kung fu moves. Similar to the gun kata in Equilibrium, the ballet in Pretty Lethal blends classical dance movements with wushu.
The fantastic fight choreography transforms développé, grand battement, grand jeté, and fouetté en tournant into tools for kicking (yes, just those—the dancers are like Sanji; they don’t use their arms) dozens and dozens of scoundrels. The scenes where Bones and the others, covered in cuts and scrapes, fight fiercely and determined to survive at all costs are enough to make Pretty Lethal an intriguing watch, but —aside from the insane fight sequences—it’s not bad that the film is also a gritty horror-flavored teen movie for girls with a powerful message of girl power, as well as a precious gift for the classical ballet community (at least as much as Arrival was for linguists). It matters little that the plot is barely there. Bonus: the delirious epilogue featuring a stone-faced Uma Thurman in Black Swan/angel of vengeance mode, armed to the teeth.
