The Dancer Upstairs

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The Dancer Upstairs ★★½ 2002 (R)

Politics and romance once again make strange bedfellows in this adaptation of Shakespeare's 1995 novel. In an unidentified Latin American country (filmed in Ecuador), idealistic lawyer Agus-tin Rejas (Bardem) abandons the law to pursue justice by joining the police. He's been assigned to track down Ezequiel (Folk), a terrorist who's behind a series of executions of government leaders. Rejas dotes on his young daughter, who takes ballet lessons from the lovely Yolanda (Morante), with whom he becomes infatuated. But his interest leads to him learning of a connection between the teacher and his quarry. Malkovich's directorial debut. 128m/C VHS, DVD . US SP Javier Bardem, Laura Morante, Juan Diego Botto, Elvira Minguez, Oliver Cotton, Luis Miguel Cintra, Abel Folk, Alexandra Lencastre; D: John Malkovich; W: Nicholas Shakespeare; C: Jose Luis Alcaine; M: Alberto Iglesias.

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