Yes, it's the backstage musical in ballet shoes, complete with hopeful ingenue who goes out a youngster and comes back a star.
The first thing to be said about The Company - particularly to those of us who ordinarily don't stampede into twinkling toe situations - is that the venerable Altman's distinctive eye remains undimmed. The sensationally shot dance sequences are exhilarating. The Joffrey's Chicago company perform a repertoire of inventive, emotive and colourful modern ballets (one of them, The Blue Snake, gobsmackingly daft); Altman fills the screen with stunning movement and striking configurations, weaving through the Terpsichorean troupe with the pizzazz of Tarantino staging a massacre.
The second thing to be said is that this is a celebration of dance and dancers in search of a plot. There really isn't one. Neve Campbell, who produced and is credited with the story - what there is of it - evidently propelled this project to realise her early dream of being a ballerina. Clearly sheÝs worked long and hard to meet the balletic requirements and approximate the very specific look of a Joffrey dancer. But her character - your basic poor little rich girl who lives to dance - just isn't interesting.
Around her, characters with anticipated subplot potential merely slip in and out, from McDowell's delicious artistic director to a weird, homeless kid who creeps around the dressing room (we're never sure if he is a member of the company or not). You expect him to pop back up doing something climactically horrible or astonishing, but he never does.
Dramatic disappointment aside, there is a feel for the unglamorous, demanding lives of the real dancers, and incredible tension is created during a performance in the park as absorbed dancers, musicians and audience soldier on through a downpour and high winds. The music also deserves a mention, particularly the witty and affecting use of Rodgers and Hart's My Funny Valentine in richly diverse renditions by the likes of Elvis Costello, Chet Baker and the Kronos Quartet.