Featured Audience Ratings

• Jim H

  
  A former ballet dancer's daughter moves to New York to star in a big-time ballet company, and the move resurfaces old grudges. I suppose that the highlights of this film are the ballet sequences, which are well-choreographed and visually fun to watch. But these sequences do… More
  A former ballet dancer's daughter moves to New York to star in a big-time ballet company, and the move resurfaces old grudges. I suppose that the highlights of this film are the ballet sequences, which are well-choreographed and visually fun to watch. But these sequences do nothing to advance the story or the film's characters; they divert the film's focus. Deedee, played by Shirley MacLaine, is the center of the film's main conflict, and Deedee must reconcile her choice - to settle down and have a family rather than compete against Emma, played by Anne Bancroft, for professional success. Despite scenes in which Deedee looks on enviously as her daughter achieves the success she never did, this conflict just sits in the background, and there aren't many moments in which we see Deedee working to resolve the conflict. The affair subplot is lame and poorly presented, and the final fight between Emma and Deedee resolves like a bad Lifetime movie - illogical, maudlin, and wracked with a bond between women that nobody could understand or believe. Overall, if you like ballet, skip the poor excuse for a plot between the dance scenes.

• AJ V

  
  A boring, talky, and slow movie about dancers. There are some good actors in the movie, but overall it's boring.

• Jennifer X

  
  This is not a great movie, but just to watch Baryshnikov propel his body to incredible heights is totally, totally worth the 2 hours. That, and the catfight between Shirley Maclaine and Anne Bancroft. Ah, how I love them.

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic]In "The Turning Point", Dee Dee(Shirley MacLaine) is a former ballet dancer, now running a dance school with her husband, Wayne(Tom Skerritt), in Oklahoma City. Twenty years previously, she gave up her career, when she became pregnant with her daughter,… More
  [font=Century Gothic]In "The Turning Point", Dee Dee(Shirley MacLaine) is a former ballet dancer, now running a dance school with her husband, Wayne(Tom Skerritt), in Oklahoma City. Twenty years previously, she gave up her career, when she became pregnant with her daughter, Emilia(Leslie Browne), who is now an accomplished dancer in her own right. A visit from the American Ballet Company including her former rival, Emma(Anne Bancroft), brings old emotions to the surface. (They were competing for the leading role in "Anna Karenina" when Dee Dee got pregnant. Twenty years later, they are envious of each other's lives.) When Emilia wins a chance to perform in New York, her mother and brother accompany her.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"The Turning Point" is an intellingent and thoughtful movie about the choices we make in life and the sacrifices and compromises that we all have to live with.(I am not sure but ballet would seem to be one of the only careers where pregnancy would perfmanently end a career.) MacLaine and Bancroft both give wonderful performances but the rest of the cast does not fare as well.(To be fair, most of them seem to be professional dancers.) I liked the movie the most when it focused on Emma and Dee Dee but was less interested about the young dancers(sorry, but I'm not a ballet fan). But I have newfound respect for the dancers, having seen the all the hard work they do.[/font]