‘Pretty Lethal’ Review: Ballerina Baddies Spin and Slit Throats in a Suspense Thriller That Skips Pivotal Narrative Beats

Razor blades and pointe shoes prove pretty lethal in Vicky Jewson’s bloody and blistered ballet thriller, which finds a dysfunctional ballerina troupe fighting for survival after a run-in with a deadly Hungarian mob. Streaming on Prime Video later this month, “Pretty Lethal” couldn’t have come at a better time, given all the drama and discourse surrounding Timothée Chalamet’s controversial remarks on the cultural value of ballet and opera relative to mainstream art forms, which earned pointed responses from both worlds.

While the film, written by former ballerina Kate Freund, is far from a critique on the material decline of the live arts, it clearly gestures towards a shrewd observation Chalamet and his particular brand of sleaze might easily dismiss: the body, and therefore ballet, as a vessel of cinematic storytelling — a visceral physical language turning into an audiovisual one. For hardcore fans of the genre and ballet alike, it’s basically a treasure trove, regardless of whether it cannot reference other ballets past “The Nutcracker,” regardless of whether all the hijinks miss a beat or stop short of depth.

The five Los Angeles-based prima ballerinas — played by Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, and Iris Apatow — have been preparing all their lives to debut at the National Theatre in Budapest, which could change the course of their careers. Especially for those who aren’t as lucky to have a head start in life, like the left-out Bones (Ziegler), who wouldn’t be able to compete without the sponsorship of the mother of spoiled brat and bully Princess (Condor). “Ballet is a rich bitch sport,” as Bones puts it, perhaps the same point the “Marty Supreme” star is trying to make, albeit conceitedly.

After landing in Hungary, a day before the grand showcase, the group’s bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Fretting over the dance of their lives, they have to steel themselves for something far worse. Opting to keep out of the forest, they take shelter in a dingy roadside inn run by Uma Thurman’s Devora Kasimer, a fallen ballet prodigy, and her henchmen. It doesn’t take long for the danger to make itself known, with the young women’s mentor (Lydia Leonard) as the first casualty. As the ballerinas hatch a plan to come out of their predicament alive, bodies begin to drop dead.

“Pretty Lethal” is fundamentally a movement movie, featuring a C+C Music Factory needle drop early on — one that is deeply attuned to swapping men for women in the realm of action cinema. At times, the film is tolerably grotesque body horror or an acid trip movie filled with Bible verse reciting, as Avantika plays the moral, religious North Star; at others, it’s an outright revenge tale, particularly as the sparse plot pivots to Devora, who is out to settle an old score with Michael Culkin’s Lothar Marcovic, a cruel crime lord. A vindictive pursuit that ends rather predictably, as we scan the routine, but are never allowed to behold the dance in its full glory. 

The “Kill Bill” star is exciting to watch, but not compelling enough to make up for the shortcomings of the uninspired script, which displays an annoying knack for stating the obvious via clichéd dialogue, that indeed the ballerinas have to band together to survive, paired with pretty lethargic pacing. Ziegler, meanwhile, is already fantastic as the only character with survival instinct, at least initially, at which point I thought it would tip “Pretty Lethal” into a final girl movie. It’s hard to ask more of Ziegler, given she really doesn’t have much to work with.

The camerawork is adequate, but never lifts the movie to a greater aesthetic delight. Close-ups on framed photographs depicting Devora’s younger, more graceful self offer less a sense of history than ambient suspense. If anything, backstories here are neatly left to the imagination. Likewise, the dreary inn, through Zsuzsa Kismarty-Lechner and Charlotte Pearson’s production design, is emblematic of Devora’s faded dream — a space where “The Nutcracker” somehow never ends. The centerpiece is, of course, the melee/dance-off between the ensemble in white tutus and the violent thugs, toe blade and all. Choreographed to stunning and outrageous effect, this might just be the most death-dealing dress rehearsal you’ll ever come across. That the goons didn’t just instantly shoot at the ballerinas also makes it all the more silly.

Despite the contrivance, Jewson makes fascinating theater out of this, flipping the archetypal image of the ballerina, and therefore femininity, on its head and rendering it as a kind of weapon, forged by years of putting up with enormous pain, against a world beset by patriarchal violence. The quintet spins, stretches, and slits throats, combining grace and discipline in what one might call “ballet-fu,” perhaps a new genre to invest in. They cram their bodies into kitchen cabinets, as does a doll in a window box. They move as a single, cohesive unit. Yet, while most of that seems top-tier entertainment, where the actors are clearly having all the fun working together, testing out new stunts, all the bone-breaking can only keep you on the edge of your seat for so long.

Framing ballet as a source of high-octane action is incredibly inventive, but “Pretty Lethal” remains a standard suspense thriller, a work that is ultimately kneecapped by a writing that renders the deeper textures of the characters largely gestural, only meant to drive the proceedings onward with sheer force. The more it generates spectacle, the more you notice how the screenplay fails to keep in step. Glimpses into past lives, including that of Bones, are hardly given any attention past suggestive pathos or plainly stating them up top that before the final dance graces us to hammer home the film’s feminist message, “Pretty Lethal” has already, totally, worn us down. No plié to absorb all the shock. In this way, Jewson’s vision is quite fatal.

Grade: B-

“Pretty Lethal” premiered at the 2026 SXSW Film and TV Festival. It streams on Prime Video globally on March 25.

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