Good Performances in a feel-good movie with contrived situations

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2008)

"Save the Last Dance" is a fish-out-of-water fable about 17-year old white bread wannabe ballet dancer Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles of "The Bourne Ultimatum") who loses her mom in a tragic car accident and finds her world turned upside down when she has to join her estranged father, jazz musician Roy Johnson (Terry Kinney of "Oxygen"), in Chicago and attend a predominantly African-American high school.
The contrived but well-intentioned Duane Adler & Cheryl Edwards screenplay severely strains credibility because it propels an outsider into a predicament that nobody in their right mind would countenance, even Sara's loser father. Sara is literally the only Caucasian girl in the entire school, at least the only one that we can relate to in a meaningful way. Yes, several other white girls attend the school, but we catch only a glimpse of them during lunch. Sara has to move in with her father in his cramped, decrepit inner-city apartment because her mom died in an accident on the way to watch her daughter audition for the prestigious Julliard Dance Academy. Love starved Sara blames herself for her mother's death and renounces ballet until she becomes involved with a bright African-American high school student, Derek Reynolds (Sean Patrick Thomas of "Dracula 2000"), that attracts her attention during her first day of classes when they argue about Truman Capote in their literature class. Eventually, Sara and Derek become an item, much to the chagrin of Derek's jealous ex-girlfriend Nikki (Bianca Lawson of "Primary Colors") and Derek's sister Chenille (Kerry Washington of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith") who resents Sara as a white girl intruding into places that she shouldn't be.
Chenille feels like Sara is a persona non grata taking advantage of her lily white skin to pull a black man out of his culture. Chenille and Sara have an on-and-off friendship and Chenille's problem with Sara grows out of her own lousy relationship with her boyfriend/out-of-wedlock father to her illegitimate child who refuses to take responsibility for his part in their own relationship. Meanwhile, Derek has problems with his own circle of friends, principally his supposed 'boy' Malakia (shaven headed Fredro Starr of "Torque") who once took the rap for him years earlier. This theme of one friend taking the fall for another in a crime is as old as the James Cagney & Pat O'Brien crime thriller "Angels with Dirty Faces." Later, when Derek realizes how much Sara means to him and how little Malakia does with his criminal shenanigans, Derek abandons Malakia and focuses entirely on Sara. Indeed, Derek nurtures Sara, teaches her the basics of hip-hop dancing, and becomes intimate enough with her that she shares her dream of being a ballerina.
At the same time that all of his drama is transpiring, Sara has to deal with her father; Roy realizes that he hasn't been a role model for her himself. Derek is unlike his other black friends because he aspires to get out of the ghetto and move on to bigger and better things, namely, he wants to attend Georgetown University and become a pediatrician.
"Save the Last Dance" is a teen romance with a protagonist Sara who doesn't realize how different that she is from all her other friends in a largely black high school. She has a run-in with Nikki that lands them both in detention. She gets to experience first-hand the disadvantages that blacks contend with in the ghetto, especially when Chenille has to wait for hours at a clinic for an appointment with her son. During these scenes some semblance of racial tension and the problems that blacks deal with come out of the Adler & Edwards script. Thomas stages a couple of drive-by shootings and the African-Americans rant about respect and trade lead with other blacks. "Save the Last Dance" confines most of the racial tension to the background. Not surprisingly, there is a happy ending, but things as well as actors change in the straight-to-video sequel. Good performances by Stiles and Thomas bolster this above-average but clichéd opus.