My Benjamin is one of those documentaries that has a great subject, but is unnecessarily saddled with more weight than it can adequately handle. A well meaning, sometimes illuminating, but ill fitting mash-up of a story about a ballet dancer reaching the end of their career and the rambling, homesick thoughts of the filmmaker capturing the story, My Benjamin sacrifices additional depth for a secondary line that never satisfyingly links up with the whole.
Filmmaker Victoria Clay Mendoza embeds herself at the Paris Opera Ballet to document the final year in the career of elite level dancer Benjamin Pech. An Étoile (the highest level of achievable mastery in ballet), Pech has come to an inevitable crossroads in his career. The mandatory retirement age for the Paris Opera Ballet is 42, and Pech has just turned 41. His career has also led to a brutal hip injury brought on by repetitive strain, requiring surgery. Benjamin hasn’t been able to jump in over a year because of his hip, but the surgery and necessary recovery time would sideline him for 8 of his last 12 months in the company.
Watching Pech wrestle with decisions about his final year on stage will play out are the best parts of My Benjamin, and when Mendoza sticks to observing her subject in their natural environment and asking them questions about the future, the film works. But My Benjamin is also built around recollections Mendoza has about her past life in her home country of Mexico, and metaphors about stray dogs and trees that don’t even have the most tangential of connections to the core story.
My Benjamin doesn’t allow viewers a chance to get to know Pech beyond his life on stage and from some archival footage of past performances. Outside of a relentless drive to be the best, which has already been achieved, there’s not much else to discuss. It also isn’t until very late in the film that Mendoza and Pech show a closer personal connection, and it’s something that’s also hazily defined. To top it all off, Pech’s final performance – which is what the film is building towards – happened back in 2016, and once that realization sets in, the whole thing feels outdated without some current context. There are good things in My Benjamin, but a clear picture never comes together.
My Benjamin screened as part of the 2026 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
