Rating: NN
Ballroom Dancer begins as a comeback doc, but becomes something else. A decade after winning the Latin ballroom World Championship, Russian dancer Slavik Kryklyvyy returns to the competition circuit with a new partner (his current girlfriend, Anna Melnikova), a few more wrinkles and a lot of doubts.
Danish directors Christian Bonke and Andreas Koefoed follow him and Anna through various competitions, where they’re always trailing behind the team that includes Slavik’s former partner, Joanna.
Slavik and Anna begin to lose their confidence, fight and take it out on each other in the studio and on the dance floor. Their coaches try to explain what’s happening, but the pair don’t seem to be listening.
This should be gripping stuff: a parable about life, art, love and getting older. But from the start, the directors don’t know how to shape their material. True, they’re hamstrung by Slavik, who’s brooding, passive-aggressive and uncommunicative, but they don’t even approach his former partner, Joanna, to help add some tension.
