Matthew Bourne completes his trilogy of Tchaikovsky classic ballets with Sleeping Beauty. While Bourne's usual dramatic reimagination of the story is exiting and effective, I had a feeling throughout that Bourne and his collaborative company struggled. The arc of the story spans over 100 years - from Aurora's birth in1890 (and the first production of Tchaikovsky classic ballet), to the sleeping curse in the late Edwardian era (1911), to Aurora's awakening 100 years later. Bourne attempts to show this passage of time by both costuming and evolution of dance styles. For the most part I thought him effective, but never genius. At times he brought in humor, including jokes on ballet memes themselves (which I'm sure irritated ballet aficionados). At times I was not sure that Bourne intended these to be humorous, or that a lover of ballet (but not a ballet nut) would find it so; for example. For example there were several scenes involving running, a dancer would transverse the stage by fake running on top of a moving belt; it looked silly.
While Bourne often brings queer themes or interests into his works, he does not do so in Sleeping Beauty. Some of the characters played by females in the original classical Sleeping Beauty are played by men, but one would be unlikely to notice unless familiar with the original.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the film, glad that I had added it to my collection.