PRETTY LETHAL (2026) Paired with Powerful Elegance
"Prima Fucking Ballerinas" fight Eastern European gangsters while we drink what Margaret Rand calls "white wines in which tannins are not the point, but have a role to play."
Even though it makes one squint to realize that 87Eleven (the David Leitch production company) is behind this movie, when 87North (the Chad Stahleski production company) just did Balleina (set in the John Wick universe) the good news is the two movies have very little in common. Plus PRETTY LETHAL gets badges for being written and directed by two women.
The script is the feature debut of actress Kate Freund (who plays one of the villains in the movie, too) and directed by Vicky Jewson, who helmed the Noomi Rapace action film Close in 2019. After the lackluster performannce of Close it seemed that Jewson might suffer the fate of Lexi Alexander before her - who directed Punisher War Journal and went straight to director jail ever since. It still took 7 years for her to get a second chance at an action flick, and I think she’ll do okay with her ballerinas-kick-the-shit-out-of-some-gangsters flick here.
Originally titled Ballerina Overdrive, the film follows an American troupe on their way to an international competition in Budapest. Their bus breaks down so they schlep their way to the nearest bar to make new travel arrangements. But when they insult one of the guests, who happens to be the son of a feared organizeed crime boss, the girls are targeted for death and have to fight their way out.
As the main character states: “These guys are drunk and out of shape and we are Prima fucking Ballerinas! So don’t tell me you’re not strong enough!”
The ballerinas are played by Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Millicent Simmonds (the real-life deaf girl from The Quiet Place movies), and Avantika, with Uma Thurman making a wild comeback as the owner of the bar, a charracter who is a former ballerina herself, still looking for revenge for the injury that halted her career (mirroring Thurman’s own Kill Bill injury that had her disappear for far too long. I’m glad she’s back in literal action!)
The fights here are creative, as one would hope. It plays with the ballerina’s sttrenghts and movement patterns, sometimes perhaps too literally such as when the girls run through formations but have razor blades in their shoes, between their fingers, and/or hammers and knives in thier hands. It’s all gleefully silly, and occassionally even rises to being authentically thrilling as the film does recognize that even ballerina-strength can be overtaken by the pure brute strength of larger men.
In one scene, evoking Hostel or Saw, a torturer sets to peel the toenails off one ballerina, and she screams “No, no, please don’t-” he yanks a toenail off, and she doesn’t react. Which makes him react, and she laughs in his face:
“My toenails come off all the time! And you know what I do? I peel them off, put a smile on my face, and keep dancing!”
The actresses each had a stunt double and a dance double, though they all trained for 1 month prior to filming, and Ziegler and Condor both had ballet training in their past, so did a significant share of thier own danciing and stunts. It’s a breezly, bloody, campy 91 minutes, but only 14.5 minutes of action (roughly 16% of the runtime) so don’t expect an action extravangaza. Expect a comedy thriller with 4 or 5 solid setpieces scattered throughout.
David Leitch and 87North have a thing for shaping action movies around unexpected protagonists. In Nobody and Nobody 2 it’s a middle-aged family man. In Silent Night it’s the literal Santa Claus. In Love Hurts it’s a real estate agent. In The Fall Guy it’s a Hollywood stunt man. And in Pretty Lethal it’s actual ballerinas, still dancing competitively.
In a number of the above, the protagonists are ex-assassins or the like, but in others they have no combat experience whatsoever. Which is the case with Pretty Lethal. And what that means is highly stylized, high concept action sequences that are too clever by half, but are certainly entertaining.
If I have one complaint, it’s that the male characters - to a one - are all terrible. Either actively horrible human beings or completely incompetent, and often both. I know we’re in the era of girl power and all that, but this felt particularly egregious. This is largely how male writers have showcased women for forever and ever, but I’m not sure flipping the script is the best way forward.
The whole time I was watching Pretty Lethal, I had an article penned by wine writer Margaret Rand in mind:
She uses a ballerina en pointe image for the article, ffs! In the piece, she writes about white wines that retain their elegance, their freshness, yet wherein tannins are present. Not as a straight-up skin-contact orange or amber wine (which is wine made from white grapes but soaked on the skins for weeks to months like ared wine is), but rather as a white wine with minor skin soakage or, say, noticeable extractions from pressing/crushing thick-skinned grapes.
“Let’s leave orange wines out of this. Skin-macerated whites, orange wines, however you want to describe them, are a separate category. They’re focused on tannins. There’s a difference between these and white wines in which tannins are not the point, but have a role to play. They’re underneath the note, as in a violin. But without them, there’d be a gap.” —Margaret Rand
We’re talking white wines that are still considered “white”. But have both astringency and texture - a certain powerfulness - added without overtaking the wine’s otherwise elegant nature. These wines don’t turn orange, but more the color that reminds you to drink more water, if you catch my drift. And this balance of power and elegance - of freshness and something stronger and bolder - is a perfect match for a ballerina action movie.
You can find numerous Eastern European wines - to match the setting of the movie - that would fit this bill, but I’m going to cheat slightly and pair mine with an Austrian wine. Which is a country that is sandwiched on three sides by the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia but is somehow not considered part of Eastern Europe. I say close enough!
Schödl Grün Grün Grüner is a beautiful example of what minimal skin cotact can do for a white wine, especially one made by a grape as naturally bright, fresh, and crisp as Gruner Veltliner. The color here is dark yellow, cloudy (drink more water!) with aromas and flavors of citrus and stone but then also bruised apples and honey. The wine is minimal intervention / “natural” but isn’t funky - it’s very clean, but that astringency and added complexity from the skins is instantly noticeable. It’s powerful without being over-powering. The elegance is as present as the power. It’s powerful elegance.
See if you can find a bottle of this, or look for a similar white wine with skin extraction but not to the point of being an orange or officially a “skin-contact” white.
And, honestly, an orange wine would work wonderfully with this movie as well. The heft of the full tannic profile in an otherwise white wine - it’s gonna play well with razor-toed ballerinas cutting up some bastards and smashing through scenery to survive.
Have you seen Pretty Lethal? Thoughts?
Have you ever had “powerfully elegant” white wine as defined this way? Do you have a favorite?
If it was a straight up ballerinas vs goons action movie, fine. But there's a whole lotta wheel spinning in the first forty five minutes. It's not the most complicated setup, guys.
I love a dance movie - thanks for the tip! (I also often like an orange - or off-orange - Gruner more than a regular Gruner...)