BALESTRA

Balestra has some great ideas in its screenplay as a psychological, science fiction character thriller set in the world of Olympic fencing, but not even a strong performance from Cush Jumbo can save the film from its incredibly long runtime.

There is no better time for Balestra to be released than right now with the 2024 Paris Olympics happening right now, which is in fact part of the film’s story. Though, it would have been better for the film to be released at the beginning of the Summer Games rather than during its final weekend. Fencing is not typically a sport that we see highlighted in films centered around the Olympics, but like every event it involves years of practice and training by the athletes. It’s rich thematic material for a character study, and with the science fiction elements at play in Imran Zaidi’s screenplay, helps to create an intriguing base for a psychological thriller. However, with a runtime just a few minutes short of two and a half hours, it becomes a chore to finish due to its incredibly slow pacing that squanders the talented performance of Cush Jumbo.

Jumbo has been lighting up the small screen for years in critically acclaimed series like The Good Wife, The Good Fight and Criminal Record, so it is great to see her in a leading role. As with all of her previous performances, Jumbo creates a strong character on screen. With her performance, Cumbo allows the audience into Joanna’s mind set as she trains for the Paris Olympics and begins to lose her grasp on reality with the experimental technology that allows her to lucid dream and continue training at night. Watching Joanna’s reality begin to blur with her dreams becomes an intoxicating experience thanks to Jumbo’s performance, which begins to border on the terrifying as you see Joanna become more detached from reality and feel no emotion towards her actions as she will do anything to claim that Olympic gold medal. The supporting performances of James Badge Dale, Manny Jacinot, and Christin Park are all very good, but with a screenplay so focused on Cumbo’s Joanna, it is hard for them to outshine Jumbo given the disproportionate amount of screen time.

The film’s plot itself, while not entirely original as it plays with ideas commonly seen in the science fiction genre, has promise. Watching this character study unfold as Joanna begins to become obsessed with lucid dreaming and the world she visits while asleep compared to her own raises some great science fiction ideas about reality and technology, while Joanna’s marriage starts to crumble and the lengths she goes to to prepare for the Olympics. The idea is there, but it is the film’s pacing and run time that ultimately dooms the film. Clocking in at almost two and a half hours, the story takes a long time to get past the introductory stage. While I can appreciate the time spent setting up Joanna as a character and her relationships, it could have been done in a more time efficient manner to get the run time down to a maximum of two hours. The last forty-five minutes of the film are strong, thrilling and everything that the story needed to deliver, but the journey getting to this point in the story is going to lose viewer’s attention as it takes too long for the film to get interesting.

With Cush Jumbo at the lead, Balestra is guided through its screenplay with a commanding performance that never falters for a second, showcasing her talent as an actress. Though, not even Cush Jumbo’s performance can salvage the film which is ultimately let down by a drawn out screenplay and runtime that overstays its welcome, making Balestra a far less effective science fiction sports thriller than it had the potential to be.