65
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonWall Street JournalJohn AndersonThe creative process is always an elusive thing for filmmakers to capture, but amid all the startling visuals and the splendid acting, Polina rises, gloriously, to the challenge.
- 75RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyRogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyThe most important thing Polina does—and it is testament, again, to the involvement of Preljocaj, a man who has devoted his life to dance—is that it shows that the everyday life of an artist is not made up of catharsis and accomplishment, triumphs and breakthroughs. Those moments only come after years of hard work, of failing and trying again.
- 75Washington PostMichael O'SullivanWashington PostMichael O'SullivanAs Polina, Shevstova delivers a performance that feels wonderfully unforced, if that’s the right word, in a role that can only be called “driven.” There’s almost an emptiness about her character. Polina’s expression of self is all on the surface — at least initially.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChroniclePolina is spare in dialogue; more is conveyed through painterly wide-screen cinematography by Georges Lechaptois.
- 70The New York TimesGlenn KennyThe New York TimesGlenn KennyIf this film’s directors, Valérie Müller and the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, don’t offer much overt material on Polina’s inner life, it’s because they don’t have to: the point of Polina, and this movie, is that her dancing is her being.
- 70Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenLos Angeles TimesSheri LindenShevtsova, until recently a dancer with the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, doesn’t quite pierce the narrative’s two-dimensionality. Through Preljocaj’s ecstatic choreography, though, she goes deep, and Polina’s story finds its language and its pulse.
- 60VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanPolina is vivid as dance but vague as drama.
- 60Village VoiceVillage VoiceImages planted early in the film betray the path Polina will take; when we watch her move freely in the woods and commune with a moose, we guess that ballet may not be the last stop on her professional train.
- 58Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerChristian Science MonitorPeter RainerThe movie often seems on the verge of being interesting but repeatedly retreats into a formless vapidity.
- 50Slant MagazinePeter GoldbergSlant MagazinePeter GoldbergEven its sensitive and gorgeous choreographies can't fully offer respite from the hollow narrative.