I don't normally "pile on" when there are already fairly negative reviews, but even going in with an open mind (and low expectations) wasn't enough to prepare me for HOW frustrating this film was. Many have either knocked it for "not enough dance" or not "good enough" dance, which are valid but actually sit well down the list for me as to what is wrong.
To me, the ENTIRE conceit that these two women had "male" inner/alter egos just did not work on ANY level. Could they, maybe, in some other form? Yes, I can imagine it though I still don't see the point. Why have a story about two women and hardly ever show them as women? There were so few scenes with them both who they actually were (women) that it made it impossible for any sort of character development to happen, and the chemistry between the various "alter" couplings was practically nil. The sex scenes were clumsy for the most part, which I guess comes down to the use of non-actors (all dancers) though again, for me it was just the jarring fact that every one of them were depicted as opposite sex versions of themselves. If it were 50/50 it might have worked a little, but this was 100% of them.
Even simple scenes where the two women might be sleeping next to the other, or having breakfast, had one of them as a man. Not only did neither of the women present as "masculine" in any way, but the men "playing" the women did not at all feel the women they supposed were playing. It was as if the director was telling a story (of two women in a relationship) that they didn't actually want to tell at all. Why this would be, I never could figure out. The other feeling you start to get by the end is that maybe they cast two women really uncomfortable with any physical contact with one another. Maybe that wasn't the case in reality, but that's how it feels.
The Dance Aspect
I'll admit, I am not a huge "dance" fan and in many respects I'm not even sure that the art-form is a good match for film in general. Nor do I think multimedia is a great thing to bring into dance performances. That said, the times I've enjoyed dance productions the most have all been live and in person. That's kind of the whole point it seems to me; being in the space that they are and feeling the energy that comes from the performance. This applies to classical ballet as much as modern dance too.
Sure, there have been "some" great films that have heavily featured dance, albeit usually in the form of musicals, but the format here felt forced most of the time, other than the first scene where the two main characters were conversing via email. That actually kind of worked, chiefly because we were seeing a kind of abstracted emotional representation of what was happening behind their words. But as others have said, that was at the very beginning, and all but a few others seemed either thrown together or just out of place.
Still, in the end, it was less the dance than the storytelling that didn't work, and especially the "alternate" characterizations.
