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The Red Shoes (1948)

(1948, Rated NR, Classic, Starring Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer)

  • Is it age appropriate?

    About our ratings

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    Not age appropriate for kids under 4, age appropriate for kids over 10; suggested age 10.

  • Is it any good?

    4.0

  • Common Sense says

    Bittersweet but enthralling ballet drama.

Why We Rated This on for Ages 10 and Up

What to watch out for

  • Messages:

    The likeable and talented heroine's rush toward suicide at the end casts a shadow over the characterization, as does the unyielding possessiveness of the two men in her life that drives her to it (there is some old-fashioned sexism in the idea that the girl has so little control over her own life she has to end it). In a small subplot a music teacher steals a composition from a student and passes it off as his own.

  • Violence:

    One suicide attempt via train, mercifully hardly shown.

  • Sex:

    Not an issue.

  • Language:

    Not an issue.

  • Consumerism:

    Names of actual ballets are reverently dropped (in European fashion, "Swan Lake" is referred to in its French title, "Lac des cygnes."

  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

    Much cigarette smoking, a raucous party with festive drinking from an oversized wine bottle.
 

What Parents Need to Know

About The Red Shoes (1948)

Parents need to know that this revered ballet drama ends with a rather romanticized suicide, a plunge into the path of a train (not explicitly shown, fortunately), a startling ending for a movie that has had universal appeal for ballerinas of all ages. There is the proposal that being a successful creative artist and having a "normal" happy personal life and family at the same time just isn't possible. Characters routinely smoke cigarettes. This is not to be confused, nosiree, with the Korean-made 2005 shocker The Red Shoes, which is a modern horror-film riff on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, or the highly erotic Red Shoe Diaries films/TV sex anthologies.

Did this review help you decide?

Families Can Talk About

  • Families can talk about Boris's belief that a great dancer must be completely devoted to the art and nothing else. Do you think this is true of other creative pursuits -- painting, music, filmmaking -- as well? Ask art-minded kids how much they would sacrifice to follow their passions, and where they would draw the line. You can also study the history of the real-life Russian-led ballet troupes that inspired this film, and talk about the notoriously domineering personalities of George Balanchine and Sergei Diaghilev, who sought to exercise Svengali-like influence over prima ballerinas. We highly recommend a well-distributed, gossipy documentary on dance history, Ballet Russes, as a companion to The Red Shoes.
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