The Road Dance

The quiet pace of The Road Dance, along with the ebbs and flows of the events around the characters, give it an authenticity and space to feel the impact. You may be captivated just as the filmmaker and I were.

Although a little too performatively Scottish at times, this is a competently made weepie that should please fans of the book.

Almost entirely set in the island community, The Road Dance delivers on its mission to entertain without defying any long-standing conventions. A pleasant slice of afternoon telly for the big screen.

It’s sentimental, though the way Kirsty is helped by women boiling with fury at the injustice does feel modern.

While the settings may indeed be beautiful, every frame here has been location-scouted and dressed to a fare-thee-well that sucks all the life out of every image—the viewer might also rest easy at the near-certain prospect that The Unfortunate Events will be conveyed as antiseptically and tastefully as possible.

The film too often feels like the plodding presentation of a sad story. And it gets sadder still, though as the plot goes on the movie tends to skirt genuine awfulness, reaching instead for the inspiring flashback, the righteous moment of justice or the happy, improbable surprise.

Shifting between stagy sincerity and startling realism (the labor scene is particularly colorful), The Road Dance is a vividly rendered, if ultimately schematic portrait of feminine resilience.