The ballet lover exposes the personal drama of the famous ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Natalia Makarova as seen through the eyes of an American female journalist. Paris, 1970's; the orchestra plays the first note of Swan Lake. In the audience sits Geneva, an American journalist, waiting for the beauty of the romantic duet to start, but instead she witnesses Rudolf Nureyev failing to catch his Russian partner Natalia Makarova, allowing her to fall upon the stage. When other critics defend Nureyev, Geneva vows revenge on the page, creating havoc in her own career and discovering surprising parallels between herself and the fallen ballerina.
