An assured piece of speculative fiction, Balestra focuses on a competitive fencer who uses lucid dream technology to hone her abilities while asleep. Starring Cush Jumbo, Manny Jacinto, James Badge Dale, and Christin Park, this psychological thriller is written by Imran Zaidi and the sophomore feature of director Nicole Dorsey. With Jacinto, Zaidi, and Dorsey, it should be noted that the film boasts a hefty amount of rising Canadian talent, both in front and behind the camera.
Through its central character, Balestra delves into the mind of a repressed woman realizing what she wants and learning to seize control of her life, no matter the fallout. Joanna (Jumbo) is a talented fencer fighting age and inner demons at the start of the film. An event five years ago caused her to put her competitive career on hold, but as she re-enters the world stage and aims to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics, she finds herself up against the younger and quicker Audie (Park), another ambitious fencer on the same track.
Joanna is championed by her husband and coach Raph (Dale), who dictates every aspect of her life, from her caffeine intake to her therapy appointments. When Joanna bemoans the lack of time she has to prepare for an upcoming competition, Raph sets her up with experimental technology that will allow her to train in dream space for a full day while asleep for only half an hour.
Using a halo-like, dream-training device, which includes a safety feature that limits her usage to twice a week, Joanna begins lucid dreaming and encounters Elliot (Jacinto), a handsome and mysterious figure within her subconscious. Before long, they fall in love, and Joanna does whatever she can to hack the device to enjoy more time in Elliot’s loving embrace rather than training. Yet, her fencing abilities improve noticeably as Joanna learns to trust her own instincts and wrestle with what she really wants from life through heartfelt conversations with Elliot.
Balestra takes its time to build Joanna’s back story and eventually reveal her hidden darkness. As the lead, Jumbo remains compelling throughout the film’s two-and-a-half hour runtime, showing her character’s many facets gradually and empathetically. She is aided by the instantly alluring Jacinto, whose calm exterior masks a Lady Macbeth-style undercurrent within his rather complex interior. As a figment of Joanna’s subconscious, Elliot doesn’t show too much individual personality but mirrors Joanna’s own intrusive thoughts, a clever and complicated trick that Jacinto and the film manages to pull off convincingly.
The entire film has an understated quality that lets the lead performances and twisted tale shine. Dorsey deftly handles the shifts from the sports competition storyline to passionate romance and eventual psychological thriller. The script also shows just what is needed to drive the plot forward, while managing to avoid the usual gaping plot holes that plague many self-contained speculative fiction stories.
One sore spot, however, may be the too-villainous character of Audie. She’s instantly unlikeable, passive-aggressively sowing seeds of fear, doubt, and jealousy in Joanna from the first moment they meet. While Park does a good job making the viewers despise her, Audie’s clear attempts at mean-girl manipulation seem almost cartoonish after a while.
Balestra is also very well shot. Fencing, despite not being widely portrayed on screen in general, becomes riveting and cinematic here. Scenes within Joanna’s dream sequences have a polished, otherworldly quality that echoes other stylish, sci-fi-adjacent films. The void-like training space in Joanna’s dream world is very reminiscent of alien scenes from Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. Meanwhile, the warm tones and bespoke minimalist interiors of Joanna and Elliot’s love nest may remind viewers of Spike Jonze’s utopian Her. Balestra‘s set designers and location scouts should truly be applauded for their work.
The film moves languidly to its satisfying conclusion, allowing its lead character to make her own decisions and face the necessary consequences of her actions. Moving skillfully between the real world’s chaos and the dream world’s catharsis, Balestra hits its mark.
