The Turning Point (1977)

56% of critics liked it
(18 reviews)
73% of users liked it
(2,675 ratings)

One of a cycle of '70s post-Women's Liberation "women's pictures," Herbert Ross's drama uses the ballet world to examine the conflict between family and career. Former dance colleagues Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) are reunited when Emma's New York ballet company stops in… More One of a cycle of '70s post-Women's Liberation "women's pictures," Herbert Ross's drama uses the ballet world to examine the conflict between family and career. Former dance colleagues Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) are reunited when Emma's New York ballet company stops in Oklahoma City for a performance. Having dropped her career for marriage and motherhood, Deedee envies prima ballerina Emma's limelight life; aging Emma, realizing that her days as a star are numbered, wishes that she had the fulfillment of a family like Deedee's. Tensions simmer when Deedee's talented teenage daughter, Emilia (Leslie Browne), moves to New York to join Emma's company. As Emma maternally bonds with Emilia, and Emilia falls in love with womanizing dancer Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Deedee feels that she's losing her place even as a mother. After Emilia's triumphant debut, Deedee's and Emma's resentments boil over into an all-out catfight that ends when they realize they can unite in happiness for Emilia's future. Splitting the desires to nest and to work between two characters, Ross and writer Arthur Laurents reveal the difficulty faced by women in a world of expanding options. As in Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's seminal ballet film The Red Shoes (1948), dancing and a personal life don't mix, even as the films display ballet's seductive power here in the gracefully integrated numbers by dance stars Browne and Baryshnikov. Despite reservations about its melodramatic aspects, The Turning Point earned box-office success and eleven Oscar nominations (but no wins). Even if its wife/work struggle seems a bit old-fashioned, Deedee's and Emma's final bond suggests that the next generation may not have the same regrets. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 59 min.
Directed By: Herbert Ross
Genres: Drama, Romance

In Theaters: Nov 14, 1977 Wide
On DVD: Jan 25, 2005
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
You yield to The Turning Point relucantly, knowing well that it is conning you -- with sentiment, with flamboyance, with sheer slickness.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
For a film ostensibly dedicated to physical grace, Ross's images are unforgivably clumsy.
Variety Staff, Variety
The Turning Point is one of the best films of its era.
Vincent Canby, New York Times
The Turning Point is entertaining, not for discovering new material, but for treating old material with style and romantic feeling that, in this day and age, seem remarkably unafraid.
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
A well-made soap opera with a story that right out of a 1930s backstage musical.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
What stands out are the ballet performances.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
Though made in 1977, this strained effort tries to combine a 1940s woman's picture with backstage melodrama set in the modern ballet world.
Chuck O'Leary, FulvueDrive-in.com
A glorified made-for-Lifetime-cable movie.
, Time Out
There's some beautiful dancing and a wealth of detail about the world of classical ballet.
Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall
moving drama
Steve Crum, Kansas City Kansan
MacLaine and Bancroft are electric to watch.
Michael W. Phillips, Jr., Goatdog's Movies
It deserved all the Oscars it won: none.
Oz, eFilmCritic.com
Unwatchable for anyone who isn't a mad ballet fan.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
A wonderful film about the friendship between two women and about the marvels of ballet.
, Film4
Its sophistications are superficial, to say the least, but it wowed the Academy in 1977.

Read all 15 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

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]

Cast

            Anne Bancroft as Emma

            Shirley MacLaine as Deedee

            Mikhail Baryshnikov as Kopeikine

            Leslie Browne as Emilia

            Tom Skerritt as Wayne

            Martha Scott as Adelaide

            Antoinette Sibley as Sevilla

            Alexandra Danilova as Dahkarova

            Starr Danias as Carolyn

            Marshall Thompson as Carter

            James Mitchell as Michael

            Scott Douglas as Freddie

            Daniel Levans as Arnold

            Jurgen Schneider as Peter

            Anthony Zerbe as Rosie

            Phillip Saunders as Ethan Rodgers

            Lisa Lucas as Janina

            Lucette Aldous
            
            Fernando Bujones
            
            James Crittenden as Billy Joe

            Suzanne Farrell
            
            Marcia Haydee
            
            Peter Martins as Ballet Star

            Alexander Minz as Boys Class Teacher

            Martine Van Hamel
            
            Charles Ward as Ballet Star

            Donald Petrie as Barney Joe

            David Byrd as Conductor
See full cast