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FILM DETAILS

Certificate 12

Cast Julia Stiles Sean Patrick Thomas Kerry Washington.

Directors Thomas Carter.

Screenwriters Duane Adler Cheryl Edwards.

Running Time 113 minutes

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Save The Last Dance
A hybrid of every crappy teen-dance-romance ever made; with Julia Stiles.

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Plot
When Sara's (Stiles) mother dies her balletic dreams are cut short and she moves in with her estranged father in Chicago. Her passion for dance is rekindled when she meets Chenille (Washington) at her nearly all black school and falls for her hip hop loving bro.

Review
Appropriately enough for an MTV production, 'Save The Last Dance' is best summed up by the music. It's a score of two parts: the many and varied hot booty dance numbers, and Mark Isham's cloying and intrusive score that tends to turn up in the more sickeningly preening teen moments.

This two-step is repeated elsewhere: while the performances are hip, and the mainly black high school is refreshingly clear of the guns 'n' gangs cliches, the plot is a hybrid of every crappy teen-dance-romance ever made.

Why, here's the audition from 'Flashdance', the forbidden romance of 'Dirty Dancing', the bitchy rivalry of 'Fame' etc. etc. Not only that, having a white girl (the charming Stiles) act as our guide to this foreign world of black music and exotic dancing is just a touch patronising, no?

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Average user rating for Save The Last Dance

RE: Yuk

Undeniable rubbish from start to finish. Very unoriginal with Cliche after Cliche yet for some reason the average female seems to love it. Why? ... More

Posted by kingp_35 at 12:55, 20 June 2006 | Report This Post

RE: Yuk

Yeah but don't you see? She couldn't dance with street because she wasn't from the street. Deep on all kinds of levels. ... More

Posted by Juvenilemike at 20:52, 19 June 2006 | Report This Post

Yuk

I had no idea that issues of Race, Class, Social Acceptance etc could all be solved through Dance?!!? Hollywood was making films like this back in the 40s and the same formula holds today. Why on Earth do they insist on generalising and cliche when trying to address supposed 'big' issues like Gang Culture and African-American class struggle? Either don't bother or get a better script ... More

Posted by TheMadFatChickKiller at 16:09, 19 June 2006 | Report This Post

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