Last Dance Saved... Just

Rating: 6/10 (30 September 2005)

Dance films are a genre not often touched by filmmakers, possibly because of their limited target audience. With the exception of musicals, which revolve more around singing than dancing, this genre hasn't provided too many highlights. Sure, we have seen highlights with 'Saturday Night Fever' and 'Dirty Dancing', but when Thomas Carter attempted to resurrect a genre lying down to rot, he didn't quite create a film up there to rival the greats.
Carter has created a dance film although the overriding genre in the film is romantic drama. The film revolves around Sara (Julia Stiles) a white, well-off teenage girl who is forced to move to a stereotypical black neighbourhood in Chicago following her mother's passing in a car accident. She there meets Chenille (Kerry Washington), a black teenage girl and soon falls for Chenille's brother Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas). The viewers are able to see the struggles Sara goes through to fit in to this neighbourhood where she is a different race, skin colour, gender and class to the other important characters in the film, as well as trying to achieve her dream of being accepted into the lucrative dance school Julliard.
Stiles, Washington and Thomas do a very good job in this film and it is refreshing to see such solid performances from actors not quite up there with Hollywood's A-List. It is relieving to see no comedic errors from the cast of 'Save The Last Dance', although at one point, Derek's efforts at motivating Sara are almost laughable as he attempts to sound positive and confident.
When you delve deeper into 'Save The Last Dance', it becomes evident which themes Carter was trying to portray his beliefs on to us viewers. Through the character Sara, we are able to see Carter's beliefs on race, gender and class and the struggles and exclusions you can face when you don't fit into the dominant and expected stereotype of the society you are living in. Sara is of a different race, gender and class to the majority of the other characters in the film and as a result, she tries to change herself to be included with, and fit into the society she has moved to in Chicago. Sara's actions do not auger well with the film's motto of 'The Only Person You Need To Be Is Yourself'. Sara almost completely contradicts this and humiliates the tag-line.
In conclusion, I found 'Save The Last Dance' to be enjoyable to watch and I was impressed with the quality of performances displayed from actors not in Hollywood's top group. The film however, did not break any new ground and despite Carter's best effort to resurrect the dance film, this effort will not go down as one of the greats. If you are a movie buff who will watch anything you can lay your hands on, this will be a great film to add to your collection of viewed films. If you only watch films every now and then, I wouldn't recommend rushing out and getting it as your weekly video as there will probably be something better. Still, 'Save The Last Dance' was a good film and I would rate it a 3 out of 5.