The Dancer Upstairs Movie Review 2002

Politics and romance once again make strange bedfellows in this adaptation of Shakespeare's 1995 novel. In an unidentified Latin American country (filmed in Ecuador), idealistic lawyer Agustin Rejas (Bardem) abandons the law to pursue justice by joining the police. He's been assigned to track down Ezequiel (Folk), a terrorist who's behind a series of executions of government leaders. Rejas dotes on his young daughter, who takes ballet lessons from the lovely Yolanda (Morante), with whom he becomes infatuated. But his interest leads to him learning of a connection between the teacher and his quarry. Malkovich's directorial debut.

Distribution

Fox Home Entertainment, PO Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90213, Phone: (310)369-3900, Toll-free: 888-223-4FOX, Fax: (310)369-5811, URL: http://www.foxmovies.com/index1.html, Remarks: Also known as Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Available on VHS, DVD
Running time 128 minutes.
Originally from United States, Spanish.

Cast and Crew

Genres

Dads, Terrorism, Police Detectives, Ballet, South America

Screenplay

Nicholas Shakespeare

Cast

Javier Bardem, Laura Morante, Juan Diego Botto, Elvira Minguez, Oliver Cotton, Luis Miguel Cintra, Abel Folk, Alexandra Lencastre

Cinematography

Jose Luis Alcaine

Director

John Malkovich

Music

Alberto Iglesias

Other

Antonio Bloch, Mario Battistel, Bina Daigeler, Pierre-Francois Limbosh

Producer

Andres Vicente Gomez, John Malkovich, Antena 3, Via Digital, Mr. Mudd, Fox Searchlight