PR in the Philippines

(SeaPRwire) –   What occurs when a troupe of dysfunctional ballerinas faces off against a ruthless mercenary gang? Per Vicky Jewson’s new action thriller Pretty Lethal, the outcome isn’t exactly the massacre one might anticipate.

The Prime Video film, which made its splashy debut at the SXSW Film & TV Festival on March 13, tracks a ballet company whose coach breaks down while traveling to a Budapest competition, compelling them to seek refuge in a dubious roadside establishment. It’s more manor than inn — a decaying domain ruled by Uma Thurman’s shady crime lord Devora Kasimer, who commands her vicious henchmen while constructing a disturbing shrine to her own ballet past. The dancers — Bones (Maddie Ziegler), Princess (Lana Condor), Zoe (Iris Apatow), Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), and Grace (Avantika) — are disturbed by their eerie environment, yet accept their host’s welcome… until their instructor Miss Thorna (Lydia Leonard) is savagely murdered by a gun-wielding thug.

From that point, Pretty Lethal becomes a relentless bloodbath, though not as viewers would predict. Rather than the fragile ballerinas falling in droves, it’s the pistol-packing enforcers and mobsters who perish. The dancers, armed only with their choreography and several strategically-positioned blades in their toe shoes, emerge victorious.

“A ballerina represents such a symbol of delicacy, that pristine white tutu,” Pretty Lethal director Vicky Jewson tells Inverse. “But this film completely upends that notion.”

Jewson, who calls herself a tomboy in childhood, lacked extensive ballet background compared to screenwriter Kate Freund, who mined her own dance experience for material. To prepare, Jewson visited London’s Royal Opera House alongside principal dancers. “I thought, ‘I need to grasp how insane this is. How crazy does it get?’” Jewson remembers. “They told me, ‘Our bodies serve as our armor. It’s our superpower.’”

Jewson weaves that “superpower” throughout the film. Once the girls discover they’re confined within the maze-like manor alongside seasoned killers, they understand they’re their own only hope for survival. So they fall back on instinct. When a thug seizes Bones, she executes a pirouette that transforms into a rotating strike. The utility knives the dancers use to soften their pointe shoes turn into armaments, and through fortunate mishap, a blade becomes embedded in Bones’ shoe, lending her spinning attacks added force. And when a henchman tortures Bones, she smirks as he rips off a toenail — she sheds nails constantly during grueling practice sessions; that’s simply part of being a ballerina.

“Every weapon originates from their dance bags, even the shellac that can become an explosive,” Jewson explains. “This isn’t John Wick. For audiences to accept it, I insisted, ‘We must trust the source.’ So everything must stem from dance. The combat can be chaotic.”

To render the combat as credible and fierce as possible, Jewson partnered with 87 North Productions, the company established by John Wick’s David Leitch and responsible for action films like Nobody, Bullet Train, and The Fall Guy. Collaborating with 87 North’s stunt team and Royal Opera ballet director William Tuckett, they developed a novel martial arts style to compete with John Wick’s “gun-fu,” which they named “ballet-fu.”

“We aimed for complete authenticity, something raw and scrappy, showing a girl battling to stay alive,” Jewson says. “Consequently, we see the emergence of ballet-fu, because when you’re backed against a wall facing life-or-death, you rely on muscle memory to survive. And her muscle memory happens to belong to this extraordinarily trained athlete, essentially a ballerina.”

Everything culminates in the movie’s key combat sequence, where the dancers are trapped in the manor’s vast tavern and must cooperate to defeat a whole legion of thugs. The company, which had been clashing up to that point — particularly abrasive leader Bones and entitled wealthy Princess — finally manages to unite, employing their ballet choreography to overcome the henchmen (aided by the previously mentioned pointe shoe blades). The outcome is an exhilarating battle sequence that succeeded through a blend of committed performers (two of them, Ziegler and Condor, having classical training), dance stand-ins, and stunt doubles.

“For our last run-through before filming the bar brawl, all the ballet doubles performed the rehearsal. Every one of them resembled Rambo,” Jewson remarks.

However, Jewson ensured minimal cast replacement — all participants completed a ballet boot camp in advance, and “pushed themselves to the limit in training,” Jewson notes. “We basically only used doubles for pointe work.”

The final result appears quite seamless, enabling Jewson to capture the essence of what she envisioned for Pretty Lethal: “You experience this blend of vulnerability and savagery,” she explains. “That creates an enjoyable juxtaposition, which I believe addresses feminism and smashing through patriarchal barriers.”

Yet the link between dance and combat is something Jewson is astonished more films (aside from a handful like the John Wick offshoot Ballerina) haven’t previously established. “Many martial arts share ties with dance, and I feel ballet simply hasn’t been sufficiently investigated,” she observes.

Pretty Lethal is currently available for streaming on Prime Video.