The Turning Point (1977) on Netflix
Deedee Rodgers leaves New York ballet for marriage and a dance studio in Oklahoma City; Emma Jacklin becomes a prima ballerina. Emilia, Deedee's daughter, is invited to join Emma's company.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.8/105,661 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes63%
Trailer
Plot summary
Deedee Rodgers and Emma Jacklin dance in the same New York ballet company and are both friends and rivals. Deedee becomes pregnant by Wayne, a fellow dancer, and leaves to marry him; the couple settles in Oklahoma City, where they run a dance studio. Emma stays and becomes a prima ballerina. Years later the company performs in Oklahoma City, and the Rodgers family watches the show and then hosts a party for the dancers. There Deedee's teenage daughter Emilia, Emma's goddaughter, is invited to take a class with the company and is offered a place in it. Deedee goes with her to New York, where Emilia, who is shy and slow to make friends, begins a relationship with Yuri, a Russian dancer in the company.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Turning Point (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gelsey Kirkland, then at the height of her fame and dating Mikhail Baryshnikov, was offered the role of Emilia but rejected it, saying she "wanted no part of Hollywood" while dealing with substance abuse issues; Herbert Ross then cast nineteen-year-old Leslie Browne as a fictionalized version of herself.
- The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards but failed to win any of them, sharing the record with The Color Purple for the most Oscar nominations without a single win.
- The script fictionalizes the real friendship of ballerinas Isabel Mirrow Brown and Nora Kaye, who met as children; their parents had emigrated from Russia around the same time and the families lived in the same New York City brownstone, where the older Kaye encouraged Mirrow to train.
- Arthur Laurents said an important subplot about Wayne's homosexuality in his original script was cut from the film by Herbert Ross and his wife, which he blamed for Wayne's character development not progressing steadily.
- Before Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine took the parts, a number of actresses were offered the roles of Emma and DeeDee, among them Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Doris Day.
