Chi Cao as Li Cunxin and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry in "Mao's LastDancer"
Bruce Greenwood, left, as Ben Stevenson and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry.Greenwood steals the movie with his portrayal of Stevenson.
One of the year's biggest art house hits has a lot of Houston ties.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Mao's Last Dancer — the story of Houston Ballet dancer Li Cunxin's defection to the United States in 1981 — has been a surprise smash on the art house circuit, taking in nearly $5 million in the last three months during its U.S. release.
While that is chump change for a Hollywood blockbuster, it's impressive for a small film with no big-name stars, middling reviews and an esoteric subject matter.
While it didn't do well in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, the movie continues to draw audiences in such cities as San Diego, St. Louis, and Houston, where it is still at the Landmark River Oaks Theatre. While most of the film was shot in Australia, much of the film is set in Houston and such locations as Miller Outdoor Theater, the Wortham Theater Center, China Garden restaurant, the Chase building and the Houston Ship Channel are featured.
The movie, which has never played on more than 140 screens nationwide, has nevertheless profited by strong word-of-mouth. Older audiences in particular have embraced the movie, which follows Cunxin from the time he was an 11-year-old boy taken from his rural village to dance for the Beijing Ballet to his stint at the Houston Ballet, where he quickly became a crowd favorite, and his politically-charged defection, which led to a tense standoff at the Chinese consulate on Montrose Boulevard.
"This movie is an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser," Michael McClellan, head buyer for Landmark Theatres told the Times. "And there's always an audience for one of those."
Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.
The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.
The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.
That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.
Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.
The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little-to-no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.
There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.
Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.
Chi Cao as Li Cunxin and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry in "Mao's LastDancer"
Bruce Greenwood, left, as Ben Stevenson and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry.Greenwood steals the movie with his portrayal of Stevenson.