60
Images planted early in the film betray the path Polina will take; when we watch her move freely in the woods and commune with a moose, we guess that ballet may not be the last stop on her professional train.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
If this film’s directors, Valérie Müller and the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, don’t offer much overt material on Polina’s inner life, it’s because they don’t have to: the point of Polina, and this movie, is that her dancing is her being.
100
Wall Street Journal by John Anderson
The creative process is always an elusive thing for filmmakers to capture, but amid all the startling visuals and the splendid acting, Polina rises, gloriously, to the challenge.
75
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
As Polina, Shevstova delivers a performance that feels wonderfully unforced, if that’s the right word, in a role that can only be called “driven.” There’s almost an emptiness about her character. Polina’s expression of self is all on the surface — at least initially.
60
Polina is vivid as dance but vague as drama.
50
Slant Magazine by Peter Goldberg
Even its sensitive and gorgeous choreographies can't fully offer respite from the hollow narrative.
58
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
The movie often seems on the verge of being interesting but repeatedly retreats into a formless vapidity.
75
RogerEbert.com by Sheila O'Malley
The most important thing Polina does—and it is testament, again, to the involvement of Preljocaj, a man who has devoted his life to dance—is that it shows that the everyday life of an artist is not made up of catharsis and accomplishment, triumphs and breakthroughs. Those moments only come after years of hard work, of failing and trying again.
70
Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden
Shevtsova, until recently a dancer with the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, doesn’t quite pierce the narrative’s two-dimensionality. Through Preljocaj’s ecstatic choreography, though, she goes deep, and Polina’s story finds its language and its pulse.