THE WHITE CROW **

While it's never likely to go down as one of the great biopics or even as one of the great dance pictures, "The White Crow" is much more enjoyable than I anticipated. The director is Ralph Fiennes who also plays the part of the dance teacher Aleksandr Pushkin and while it's not quite a thriller he does place the emphasis on Nureyev's defection to the West and he's greatly helped by the casting of the dancer Oleg Ivanko as Nureyev who dances brilliantly and proves himself more than credible as an actor.

There's also a good deal of background information of Nureyev's childhood and his early career in Russia while his homosexuality is given its due but fundamentally its main focus is on his eventual escape while authenticity is established by Fiennes' use of Russian almost throughout. It was adapted by David Hare from Julie Kavanagh's biography of the dancer and it does have a fine literary bent to it. Fiennes may not be the most imaginative of directors but he does know a good yarn when he sees one and "The White Crow" is definitely a good yarn.