Birds of Paradise

People of color are represented among the top dancers at a prestigious ballet school. One complains that Black girls have to work twice as hard to do as well as their privileged White competitors in the climb to the top. A person with fewer financial resources is attributed with more ambition and drive than her wealthy rival. The rich are depicted as insensitive and self serving. A trans actress plays a wise and jaded ballet school administrator.

A boy is said to have died via suicide. His sister feels responsible for the death, although nothing suggests she's at fault. Someone tries to copy that suicide, but has a change of heart. Two girls get into a physical fight the minute they meet. A dancer throws herself onto the floor as part of a dance. Bloody and abused dancers' feet are seen. A dancer hurts herself during an audition and is seen limping away from the school. A dancer vomits in a ladies' room and hints that she's bulimic in order to keep her weight down as she struggles to compete with "skinny White girls." A teacher tells a student that her cat likes "fresh" meat. Then she invites the student to administer poison to a caged rat as a demonstration that the student has what it takes to succeed. It's implied that the student agrees to kill the rat. A student pressed for money steals dance supplies. A former dancer describes an unwanted pregnancy and miscarriage. Incest is hinted at: A parent believes she caught her son and daughter having sex together and says "Dance is a ritual of seduction, no?"

Characters kiss and have sex; they're shown unclothed from the shoulders up. Brief glimpses of breasts are seen in erotically-tinged shower scenes. Choreography intertwines dancers in suggestive ways. In a threesome, two female dancers and a male dancer kiss and touch each other. No body parts are seen. Dancers dressed in scant outfits and wearing masks and glitter dance at a club suggestively. A male dancer trying to seduce a new female dance student says, "What makes a perfect ballerina? Total submission. Allow yourself to be possessed." Then he proceeds to have presumably consensual sex with her. No nudity is seen.

"F--k," "s--t," "bastard," and "pee."

A dance student introduces himself to the new girl as a "drug dealer" and suggests that no one can perform well without the assistance of drugs. Marine's brother used drugs and came to a bad end. Kate and others take pills and snort white powder. One girl smokes cigarettes. To enter a club, patrons have to eat a worm that's laced with a psychedelic.