Somewhere between Chicago and High School Musical

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2011)

After a lonely, lowly, spirited amateur dancer defiantly discards her mundane life in Iowa in search of a more exciting existence pursuing her stage talents, she stumbles across a sensually stylish yet struggling Burlesque club in Los Angeles. Struck immediately by its raunchy grandeur and by the promises it holds for an aspiring performer such as herself, she strives relentlessly to become one of its members. Director Steve Antin handles these early developments with more subtlety and believability than is the norm for films with similar plot lines, allowing us to see the things from the protagonists point of view whilst also comfortably accepting that we may not wish to feel the same way about it, seeing as we have only just been introduced to the girl. As she ventures into this corner of showbiz our mindsets are naturally entwined with hers. Together we encounter the various colourful characters of the club, and see the way they are all either a help, a hindrance or a bystander during her climb from being a simple waitress thanks to the help of a spunky, good-hearted bartender, to becoming their main attraction thanks in part to the clumsy sabotaging of a clearly incompetent rival. The aforementioned depictions, making up the first part of the film, are most definitely a lush and exciting piece of work, densely endowed with engaging and involving occurrences, finely crafted scenes of dialogue and sprinklings of tuneful glamour and romantic decadence. After this it then proceeds in a less fulsome, but still entertaining fashion, focusing mainly on the love life of the girl, named Ali, and the dramas involved in the club's financial problems. In the end this subject matter proves to be considerably less sustainable than that explored earlier, and consequently, the musical aspect it turned up a notch, and the numbers grow in frequency and extravagance. Yet despite the thinness and tackiness, the later scenes do still carry that same undeniable charm and emotional value seen before, and so you feel you just have to love this film no matter what, and the explosive toe-tapping finale is very satisfying. So despite the obvious wantonness, memorability and fun is always ensured by the film's much more prominent merits: stupendous songs, the gorgeous visual package, the attractive premise, and of course the well- oiled cast, in which Christina Aguilera, Cam Digandet, Cher and Stanley Tucci are especially brilliant. In short, Burlesque is on feeling a masterpiece, but on reflection a misfire: the point being that if you don't overthink it you'll have the time of your life.