Herbert Ross' "The Turning Point" is by no means a bad movie but the frontier between quality and enjoyment is so blurry at times that even a film with good performances, art-direction, music and other high-aiming assets doesn't make for a compelling story... I don't know if I expected a lot to begin with.
For an Oscar buff like me, movies nominated for Best Pictures have always been 'must-watch'. "The Turning Point" wasn't just nominated for that Oscar but for 10 others and that includes four acting nominations (surely an equivalent to "Network" or "Rocky" one would imagine) but even within the chronological company of iconic New Hollywood pictures, this one never ignited a strong desire to watch it... I could call it a personal bias against 'ballet' but no, I was enthralled by movies such as "The Red Shoes", "All That Jazz" and "Black Swan" and I admit that the best part of "The Turning Point" was the ballet sequences.
I didn't expect much because I knew that even in the late 70s, the New Hollywood inspiration was losing its breath and some particularly low-key films for the sake of realism were starting to pinpoint the limits of 'author' cinema. Indeed, what were the other Best Picture nominees of 1977: two other well-intentioned but similarly lackluster films with a made-for-TV feel such as "The Goodbye Girl" and "Julia" and then two classics: "Annie Hall" and a certain space opera signaling the rise of the blockbuster movies (already announced by "Jaws"). It's easy to say why 1977 wasn't a particularly interesting year except for these two icons and perhaps another classic that happens to be about dancing: "Saturday Night Fever".
It wouldn't be fair to compare a tale of two middle-aged women contemplating their career and personal choices with a tale of youth finding areas of expression on the dance floor but let's just be a little primitive for once: if one movie about dancing doesn't inject a strong urge to question your own passions, fears or demons and translate them into an artistic endeavor that defines you, then dancing is only accessory. And that's the problem with "The Turning Point" approach of dancing, it lacks the spark of passion, what remains is just a story of a woman named Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) who reminisces about the time where she could be a star and her friend Emma (Anne Bancroft) who becomes a star and tries to gracefully cope with, as Stallone would say the "inevitable migration toward obsolescence".
You'd think I only gave you a little pitch and the film goes further from that starting point but believe me, it doesn't. Never does Ross try to provide a little more ambivalence to his characters, too reasonable for the film's own good and too busy inflicting us some expositional dialogues during the first twenty minutes. Maybe the reason is that Deedee is still contented with her life, after all, she still has a ballet school in Oklahoma, she married a former dancer (Tom Skerrit) and her children inherited the virus especially her daughter Emilia (Leslie Browne) who got the epiphany after watching Emma and Deedee is simply jealous. The beginning of the daughter's journey triggers the mother's contemplation of her long-ago decision to privilege family. The closest to subtlety added to that personal introspection comes way too late in a riveting conversation between Emma and Deedee where her talent is put into debate and we wonder if she simply didn't make the right choice.
But talk about a long build-up to a predictable outcome. I don't mind 'serious' stories with straightforward approaches, some have the makings of masterpiece, like a certain Best Picture winner about conflictual mother-and-daughter relationship starring Shirley MacLaine. "Terms of Endearments" didn't have a revolutionary storyline, hell, it didn't have dancing but what it had was a character we could seriously relate to: tortured, obnoxious but with a fierce passion and humor. "The Turning Point" has no humor whatsoever which is a waste of MacLaine's potential (only the climactic catfight brings a few chuckles), the daughter is rather bland and only shines in her dancing moments and through some interactions with the more colorful Yuri (interesting Baryshnikov), the closest to a colorful character is the aging Martha Scott as a woman who calls a spade a spade and makes for awkward situations... never fully exploited. Ross isn't just being reasonable, he's just too civilized.
And Ross' mistake is to take his passion for ballet for granted and never try to get out of the soap-opera zone of comfort, something Fosse would truly accomplish with "All That Jazz", to create a parallel between stage and real life. Ross keeps it safe and all we've got is poor Deedee drowning her sorrows, sharing her insecurities and you know it's a bad sign when you've got to insert a lousy affair as a filler. I agree with many reviewers that the subplot was uncalled for and the characters not too involving and that's a shame because the performances deserved more, Bancroft and MacLaine do their best to make their middle-aged fading women relatable and serious but guess who took home the Oscar that year? Diane Keaton as the perky and petulant Annie Hall. Where was the punch? The anger? Even a social commentary about women's existential dilemmas and the eternal equation between career, passion and family?
"The Turning Point" was a personal dream from Ross that took ten years to achieve and alas, it shows, there's something anachronistic about it, some said it was a revival of the old Hollywood pictures of the 40s, I think it's closer to the 60s in spirit with a suburban setting that foreshadows the realistic family dramas of the 70s and 80s. Coincidentally, I just watched yesterday the "Sly" documentary and it said more about lost opportunities, pivotal career choices and fading glory in two or three punch statements from Stallone than these two hours or excruciating pastel drama.
For an Oscar buff like me, movies nominated for Best Pictures have always been 'must-watch'. "The Turning Point" wasn't just nominated for that Oscar but for 10 others and that includes four acting nominations (surely an equivalent to "Network" or "Rocky" one would imagine) but even within the chronological company of iconic New Hollywood pictures, this one never ignited a strong desire to watch it... I could call it a personal bias against 'ballet' but no, I was enthralled by movies such as "The Red Shoes", "All That Jazz" and "Black Swan" and I admit that the best part of "The Turning Point" was the ballet sequences.
I didn't expect much because I knew that even in the late 70s, the New Hollywood inspiration was losing its breath and some particularly low-key films for the sake of realism were starting to pinpoint the limits of 'author' cinema. Indeed, what were the other Best Picture nominees of 1977: two other well-intentioned but similarly lackluster films with a made-for-TV feel such as "The Goodbye Girl" and "Julia" and then two classics: "Annie Hall" and a certain space opera signaling the rise of the blockbuster movies (already announced by "Jaws"). It's easy to say why 1977 wasn't a particularly interesting year except for these two icons and perhaps another classic that happens to be about dancing: "Saturday Night Fever".
It wouldn't be fair to compare a tale of two middle-aged women contemplating their career and personal choices with a tale of youth finding areas of expression on the dance floor but let's just be a little primitive for once: if one movie about dancing doesn't inject a strong urge to question your own passions, fears or demons and translate them into an artistic endeavor that defines you, then dancing is only accessory. And that's the problem with "The Turning Point" approach of dancing, it lacks the spark of passion, what remains is just a story of a woman named Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) who reminisces about the time where she could be a star and her friend Emma (Anne Bancroft) who becomes a star and tries to gracefully cope with, as Stallone would say the "inevitable migration toward obsolescence".
You'd think I only gave you a little pitch and the film goes further from that starting point but believe me, it doesn't. Never does Ross try to provide a little more ambivalence to his characters, too reasonable for the film's own good and too busy inflicting us some expositional dialogues during the first twenty minutes. Maybe the reason is that Deedee is still contented with her life, after all, she still has a ballet school in Oklahoma, she married a former dancer (Tom Skerrit) and her children inherited the virus especially her daughter Emilia (Leslie Browne) who got the epiphany after watching Emma and Deedee is simply jealous. The beginning of the daughter's journey triggers the mother's contemplation of her long-ago decision to privilege family. The closest to subtlety added to that personal introspection comes way too late in a riveting conversation between Emma and Deedee where her talent is put into debate and we wonder if she simply didn't make the right choice.
But talk about a long build-up to a predictable outcome. I don't mind 'serious' stories with straightforward approaches, some have the makings of masterpiece, like a certain Best Picture winner about conflictual mother-and-daughter relationship starring Shirley MacLaine. "Terms of Endearments" didn't have a revolutionary storyline, hell, it didn't have dancing but what it had was a character we could seriously relate to: tortured, obnoxious but with a fierce passion and humor. "The Turning Point" has no humor whatsoever which is a waste of MacLaine's potential (only the climactic catfight brings a few chuckles), the daughter is rather bland and only shines in her dancing moments and through some interactions with the more colorful Yuri (interesting Baryshnikov), the closest to a colorful character is the aging Martha Scott as a woman who calls a spade a spade and makes for awkward situations... never fully exploited. Ross isn't just being reasonable, he's just too civilized.
And Ross' mistake is to take his passion for ballet for granted and never try to get out of the soap-opera zone of comfort, something Fosse would truly accomplish with "All That Jazz", to create a parallel between stage and real life. Ross keeps it safe and all we've got is poor Deedee drowning her sorrows, sharing her insecurities and you know it's a bad sign when you've got to insert a lousy affair as a filler. I agree with many reviewers that the subplot was uncalled for and the characters not too involving and that's a shame because the performances deserved more, Bancroft and MacLaine do their best to make their middle-aged fading women relatable and serious but guess who took home the Oscar that year? Diane Keaton as the perky and petulant Annie Hall. Where was the punch? The anger? Even a social commentary about women's existential dilemmas and the eternal equation between career, passion and family?
"The Turning Point" was a personal dream from Ross that took ten years to achieve and alas, it shows, there's something anachronistic about it, some said it was a revival of the old Hollywood pictures of the 40s, I think it's closer to the 60s in spirit with a suburban setting that foreshadows the realistic family dramas of the 70s and 80s. Coincidentally, I just watched yesterday the "Sly" documentary and it said more about lost opportunities, pivotal career choices and fading glory in two or three punch statements from Stallone than these two hours or excruciating pastel drama.