The complexities, uncertainties and rivalries of young female friendship are explored in heightened, near-surreal ways in Sarah Adina Smith’s ballet-school drama, Birds of Paradise, now playing on Amazon Prime. Working-class Kate (Diana Silvers) is the awkward newcomer at a somewhat gothic Parisian dance academy, and she’s immediately thrust into competition with Marine (Kristine Froseth), the talented, beautiful and mercurial daughter of the American French ambassador. The two women, placed together as roommates, quickly bond, however, following a competitive dance-off in a psychedelic dance club, a night-long endurance test that Smith cleverly constructs along the lines of the classic game-theory test, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 5, 2021