Relies on cliché, platitudes, easy sentiment and a great soundtrack but it sets out its stall, knows its audience and delivers well

Rating: Null/10 (19 November 2006)

It was the summer of 1963 when the Houseman's went to Kellerman's resort, where the wealthy enjoy dancing and light entertainment. The dancing is very safe and the Kellerman's youngest daughter "Baby" is more taken in by the more upbeat and wild dancing that takes place over in the staff quarters (much to the disapproval of Mr Kellerman). When one of the dancers gets "in trouble", Baby tries to help even though the dancers (particularly Johnny) distrust her motives and dislike her spoilt background. As she learns to dance with Johnny though, Baby wins them over while also growing up in several ways during the summer.
A recent Orange "don't let a phone ruin your movie" skit at UGC featuring Patrick Swayze reminded me that I had never actually gotten round to seeing this film. Strange as it sounds I could tell you the plot and knew it from the music videos and general cultural knowledge but I'd not actually sat and watched it. Well, anyway, I did recently and found a basic but effective film that did just what I expected along fairly predictable lines. For those who hate sentiment this will be a big problem and they should not even bother but for viewers that love this sort of thing or can get caught up in it then it is pretty much spot on. The "learning to dance" device asks you to accept a bit of a stretch in credibility but generally it is well used to follow Baby as she goes from a teenager into a young woman. It isn't the deepest of affairs and is built on cliché and platitudes at times but generally it has the heart to make it work.
Ardolino milks this sense of passion pretty well and delivers the film pretty straight. The cast don't have a lot of depth to work with but they do generally have what it takes to make this sort of material work. Grey was surprisingly subtle with her character and I was quite taken by her deepening  it is not her fault that the script asks her to do a lot quickly. Swayze has a more obvious character but he is sexy and convincing in his character's strengths as well as his weaknesses. Below them nobody is actually that good (although Orbach is a solid presence) but this doesn't matter too much as the central chemistry is what carries the story.
Overall then a fairly obvious but effective film that will easily win over fans of the genre. It relies on cliché, platitudes, easy sentiment and a great soundtrack to do this, which does prevent it being deep and realistic enough to win over the sceptics but it sets out its stall, knows its audience and delivers well.