Hip-hop Stiles

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2003)

'Save the Last Dance' is an enjoyable movie. It has a set-up that we have seen so many times, but after a while little surprises pop up. It is funny too. The movie is about a white girl Sara (Julia Stiles) who once liked ballet and a black guy Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas) who likes hip-hop music. Sara just moved to Chicago to live with her father Roy (Terry Kinney). Her mother died in a car crash. She was on her way to see an audition of Sara, and therefor she thinks it his her fault her mother died. In Chicago she goes to a school with mainly black people. This is where she meets Chenille (Kerry Washington) and her brother, Derek. On a party she tries to dance with Derek on hip-hop music but it isn't really her style. Derek wants to teach her how to dance and after a while they are falling in love with each other.
Although all this sounds very familiar there a things here you wouldn't expect. Or you would expect them but they just don't happen. Example: there is a scene with Derek and Sara, in her house, where Sara's father is not supposed to be home for a while. You expect certain things to happen, you probably know what I mean, but it never does happen. Also, the characters feel more like real people than you normally see in a movie like this. They have real emotions and they can think for themselves. There are very funny moments too, the scenes where Sara starts her hip-hop training are great. I am not a big fan of the hip-hop music but in this movie it was pretty good, just because of the images with it.
Of course there are some familiar and expected points in the movie. Sara has to pick up her ballet again and Derek has a criminal friend who is not a big fan of Sara. These things is what you expect in a movie like this. But normally you see only this kind of things and I was glad to see that 'Save the Last Dance' didn't settle for them. There was one thing that bothered me. Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas give very good performances, but where Stiles was really young, Thomas was already in his thirties. He was good, but there must have been a younger actor more suitable for the job. Despite this little thing it is a very enjoyable and entertaining movie, with some intelligence as well.