Save the Last Dance (2001)

Lack of good storyline.

Good concept, poorly executed.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Nothing in this film is original, you've seen it a dozen times, but this is more than an oddball in the new-school romcom with dance thrown in. This one is more adult, it deals with real issues and it deals with them in a not very glamorous manner ie it doesn't mince it's words. This I like. The music is good, the dancing is good and so is the script. For the life of me I struggle to see Sean Patrick Thomas (SPT) without a feather 'duster' in his hand wearing silky boxers (Cruel Intentions - le Chevalier Raphael Danceny character), which to be fair isn't a crying shame on the mind's eye, but in this he is good; convincing as the ghetto boy who wants out and gets out, and who can dance! Then comes the problem. I don't particularly admire Julia Stiles as an actress, she doesn't have enough range of facial expressions and always looks sort grumpy, blank, and reading off a cheat-sheet, so I just didn't "get" her in this - although I did like her in Ten Things I Hate About You, and she wasn't bad per se it was just that whilst impressed that she clearly did her own dancing, I didn't see passion or feeling and that took the shine off for me. Kerry Washington was notably good as Derek's (SPT) teen-mum sister, and I really liked the quiet understated performance of Terry Kinney, Sara's estranged father. Save the Last Dance balances the emotions in the film well, and in parts it does get a bit emotional as it deals with despair, bereavement, confusion, fear, jealously, anger and loyalty, joy, exuberance, acceptance and a sort of redemption.People with interest in hip-hop should like the tunes and dancing in this, and there's enough of it, with a ballet fusion, and it's the mix of drama, romance, dance, music and realism that makes this film more than the sum of it's parts, for target-audience-teens or adults. It's not just another teen movie, this has attitude!

Julia Stiles again (as in "10 things I hate...). While she wouldn't actually be my first choice in a dance flick, I don't think she's the wrong one. Whereas Jessica Alba in Honey -> just wrong! Too cute, no emotional depth, but that's a different story altogether. But reminds us how difficult it is, to make a music/dance movie, that actually has some story to it.Most of the movies, just lay their weight on the dance scenes. And while those are fun to watch, you can't but think that you are watching a pretty long (and therefor boring) music video. The drama and the acting do elevate this one above some other efforts, but it's still not perfect. Well to me it isn't, so if you like this type of movies, you might enjoy it even more than I did.

O.K let me start by saying i'm 18years old, and some may not class that as a "MATURE" viewer but its definitely older than i was when this movie first came out which was 10 YEARS OLD! now i remember watching this movie with a bunch of friends at a friends house and LOVING it, by the time i was 12 this movie was comfortably my favorite and i still have it on DVD. However i just saw it come on t.v recently and after watching it although i still thought it was a solid movie it no longer holds the TOP SPOT for me and i wish they had focused a little more on Chenille's situation, Kerry Washington is one hell of an actress especially in the scenes with her "baby daddy", but i understand it can only be so long. I still like my fav scenes that i did before i.e fight scene with Nikki and Sarah, all the club scenes and Sarah's dramatic speech about ballet and of course her audition dance. All in all i'd say it's a great movie but i'm not as enthusiastic as i was when i was younger...

This is a teen movie. This means it works under strict formulas, ruled by market and by what the big bosses of Hollywood think teenagers want. There is a big contradiction behind the majority of these teens movies.: In most cases (this is no exception) these films tell stories of people who try to outdo themselves. These characters try to make special things, to get over the underdeveloped environments (socially, culturally, economically) from which they come from. So, ordinary people trying to reach special goals, trying to be special people. But than, all these films are perfectly ordinary, made massively, one copying the other, with absolutely nothing special beyond any of them. This one doesn't totally enter that kind of film for one redeeming element, but it practically does it.Here, the female character is someone whose attempt to grab her personal dreams led her (in her view) to a personal downfall, her male match is someone who fits perfectly the stereotype i described above. The matching of one against the other and the conflict this generates is mildly interesting, though not enough to take the film out of its vulgarity. The redeeming element is how dance is used to illustrate this contradiction. Ballet vs hip-hop, internal vs external forms of expression. I frankly thought Julia Stiles didn't go well in this part. She was strangely stiff and uneasy. She has a sober way of acting, but here it sounds like if she wasn't quite sure of how to express, like if she couldn't "dance". Yet the idea of placing dance as a displayer of characters attitudes towards their reality and what happened/may happen to them was interesting. The overall product was quite flawed.My opinion: 2/5 interesting concepthttp://www.7eyes.wordpress.com