Pretty Lethal: A Dance of Survival and Escape In The Woods

Coming off a world premiere at this past South by Southwest Film Festival, Pretty Lethal follows a dysfunctional ballet troupe made up of Bones (Ziegler), Princess (Condor), Zoe (Apatow), Chloe (Simmonds), and Grace (Avantika) who,  while travelling to Hungary for a ballet performance, are left stranded when their bus breaks down in the middle of the woods. From there, the group is forced to take shelter in a remote inn that’s clearly operated by some shady individuals. After their coach is killed, the ballerinas are taken captive and must take charge, using their training to fight back and escape before its too late. At the end of the day, these ingredients make for a solid action thriller that, though entertaining enough, sports nothing all that memorable or exciting about it.

The biggest compliment one can give to Pretty Lethal is its adeptly constructed, choreographed, and filmed action. Director Vicky Jewson injects it with a cool visual style, making it an easy highlight. Meanwhile, another is its talented ensemble, one who work well together and have good chemistry with one another, despite the fact that the distribution of roles isn’t quite as even as it should have been. Out of the five, the standout is Ziegler as Bones, a character that is without a doubt the most relatable and most fleshed out of the group. Similarly, Avantika showing off her natural comedic skills as Grace, and Condor finds a way to make a rather unpleasant and borderline annoying character in Princess mostly bearable. Rounding out the group of ballerinas, Apatow and Simmonds, as sisters Zoe and Chloe, show up and deliver when called upon.

Offering up a nice change of pace, this action thriller runs at a fast clip, not wasting any time in getting right to the point, even before its title card drops. However, the other side of this is how these choices also cause the film to feel incredibly rushed at times, and not fleshed out nearly enough in terms of characters and plot. The story itself is about as barebones as one could get, featuring nothing in the way of real surprises or anything can’t be predicted from the get-go. Above all else, the biggest sin of Pretty Lethal by far is that is spends the majority of its runtime unclear on what kind of tone it wants to have.

The film cannot decide if it wants to embrace its incredibly silly premise, or if it wants to be taken seriously, which makes its tone feel imbalanced. As a result, the tone finds itself in an awkward middle ground, when it would have been better served embracing one or the other. On the other hand, as great as it is to see Uma Thurman again in a villainous role, she’s criminally wasted and given hardly any screen time as Devora Kasimer. In spite of its premise, the lack of worthy adversaries for the ballerinas to contend with is rather disappointing, settling with a wave of generic and disposable antagonists, and that includes Kaismer.

Pretty Lethal comes in with a promising premise and an impressive ensemble in front of the camera, but disappoints with an effort that fails to live up to its potential. That being said, the film nonetheless delivers a decent viewing experience, and one that won’t be too demanding, considering its short length (running at 90-minutes) and fast pace. If nothing else, it is worth checking out off the strength of its talented cast and action alone, however, many audiences will still be left wanting more.

still courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/