The Turning Point (1977)

          Making fun of The Turning Point requires little effort, since it’s such a consummate “chick flick” that it almost seems like it was designed to repel heterosexual males—the picture is a tearjerker about friendship in the ballet world starring two middle-aged women. And, indeed, the movie’s narrative is exactly as soapy as the premise might suggest. That said, The Turning Point is worthwhile in every important way. The acting is great, the cinematography is beautiful, the dancing is terrific, the direction is fluid, and the writing is intelligent. In short, The Turning Pointis highbrow schmaltz—very much like The Way We Were (1973), another project that sprang from the pen of writer Arthur Laurents.

          The Turning Pointtells the story of two lifelong friends who reconnect after a long period of estrangement. As young women, DeeDee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) were both promising ballerinas in New York City. DeeDee chose family, hooking up with fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) to set up housekeeping in Oklahoma, while Emma became a star. The picture begins with Emma arriving in Oklahoma for a performance, which occasions a reunion with her old friend after the show. As the women subsequently bond and clash, old differences manifest in harsh judgments about each other’s lives. The picture also tracks the ascendance of DeeDee’s daughter, Emilia (Leslie Browne), a promising young ballerina onto whom both older women project their dreams. The biggest subplot involves Emilia’s hot romance with Yuri, a ballet star played by (and modeled after) Mikhail Baryshnikov.

           The movie’s torrid narrative tackles such themes as age, ambition, betrayal, jealousy, regret, and, eventually, the gaining of wisdom through experience. Much of the film, of course, is devoted to dance, with long sequences of Bancroft faking her way through routines and of real-life dancers Baryshnikov and Browne strutting their stuff. Director Herbert Ross, himself a former dancer, clearly approached this film with great love—in fact, Browne was his godchild—and he generated both impassioned acting and lyrical imagery. Nobody phones in a performance for The Turning Point, and all four principal players—Bancroft, Baryshinkov, Browne, and MacLaine—received Oscar nominations. (The picture scored 11 nods in all, though it lost in every category.)

          Yet even with such exemplary work, The Turning Point is not one of those niche-interest movies that surpasses its inherent limitations by speaking to universal themes. Viewers who don’t dig ballet or scenes of women talking about their feelings will find little to love here. Even the picture’s breakout star, Baryshnikov, is a treat for the ladies, because he’s charismatic, muscular, and sensitive—an exotic hunk in tights. So perhaps it’s best to regard The Turning Point as a beautifully made throwback to the studio era, when such powerful actresses as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis regularly starred in what are now pejoratively referred to as “women’s pictures.”

The Turning Point: GROOVY

Young Winston (1972)

          It’s appropriate that the longest sequence in Young Winston takes place during the Boer War, because the movie is a bore. Restrained and respectful in the extreme, this adaptation of a memoir by the revered UK wartime leader Winston Churchill sprawls across 157 lugubrious minutes. Written for the screen and produced by the great Carl Foreman, with Richard Attenborough handling the direction, the film boasts impressive production values but an overly sterile narrative style.
          The most interesting thread of the movie relates to future politician Winston's fraught relationship with his father, forceful Member of Parliament Lord Randolph Churchill (Robert Shaw). During childhood, Winston struggles to earn his aloof father's attention, and during adulthood, Winston seeks revenge against the political establishment that bested his father. This is rich stuff, but Foreman and Attenborough approach the intense family material with the stuffiness of textbook authors. Another thread of the picture involves Winston's relationship with his American-born mother, Lady Churchill (Anne Bancroft). She represents an interesting collision between aggressive and passive impulses, but her complexities remain largely unexplored. The third and final major thread of the story—which gets the most screen time--involves Winston's military career. Alas, the filmmakers can't decide where they stand on Winston's conduct as an officer. Is he a hero willing to risk all for his country and himself (two entities he considers inextricably linked), or is he the glory-hound his detractors criticize him for being? Like so many questions that are raised by Young Winston, this one goes unanswered.

          Foreman integrated many of Churchill's own musings into the script, and those remarks are read in voiceover by star Simon Ward, performing a cartoonish impression of the real Churchill's distinctive speech pattern. Attenborough, who later found his groove as a director of critic-proof dramas about saintly characters—notably Gandhi (1982)—delivers acceptable work during the picture's big-canvas scenes, such as those depicting Winston's battlefield exploits circa the late 19th century and early 20th century. (It helps that the filmmaker shamelessly copies David Lean’s pictorial techniques.) Attenborough's filmmaking doesn't fare as well during close-quarters sequences. For instance, he relies on an ineffective device of filming just one side of long interview scenes while an unseen journalist peppers the interview subject with questions. These scenes drag on forever.

          Not all of Young Winston’s shortcomings should be blamed on Attenborough, however. Leading man Ward (who plays Winston as a young adult) lacks charisma and dynamism, which short-circuits the whole enterprise, and Foreman’s script features excruciating detail about the internecine processes of British government. (Even the long Boer War sequence, which portrays Winston's capture by enemy forces and subsequent daring escape, gets bogged down with narration explaining the political significance of Winston’s situation.) Unsurprisingly, Shaw gives the closest thing the picture has to a full-blooded performance. His appearance climaxes with a poignant scene of Lord Churchill succumbing to mental decay in the midst of a speech. But if the best scene in a two-and-a-half-hour biopic doesn't revolve around the protagonist, that’s a problem.

Young Winston: FUNKY