Ballerina is a charming animation about a pair of waifs who escape their Breton orphanage and flee to Paris to realise their ambitions. Félicie dreams of a career as a dancer; Victor fancies himself an inventor. Nineteenth-century Paris is handsomely captured in pleasing sun-dappled computer-animation. And the message of fortitude and resilience is undercut with humour. Still, the decision to replace the music of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite at the film’s climax with some honking power-pop atrocity destroys much of the delicately wrought atmosphere.
