RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
ONE SENTENCE SYNOPSIS: A girl nicknamed Baby and her well-off family spend a vacation at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, where she falls for the resort’s dance instructor, Johnny Castle, and dirty dancing.
Right now I am really busy, and somehow I’ve had time to go to two movies this week. Both of them were great, but….. I just watched Dirty Dancing for the first time. Naturally I have to talk about it.
If like me, you never bothered to watch another film about dance after seeing Strictly Ballroom–hands down the best dance-centric romance–the premise is that Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) volunteers to stand in for professional dancer Johnny Castle’s (Patrick Swayze) dance partner, Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes), in a weekly show at a nearby resort so that Penny can have an abortion and Johnny and Penny won’t have to forfeit their salary for the season. Someone thought that it was completely doable for a person who has no aforementioned dancing under their belt to be able to perform at a professional level. Johnny teaches Baby the routine, often getting mad at her for not learning as quickly as a pro would. In less than a week, Baby learns the routine, then performs it, receiving much applause from the vacationing crowd and some belated praise from Johnny.
After their triumphant performance, Johnny finally sees something in Baby, who clearly had something for him before or why else would she have volunteered to practice with him in the first place? Let’s be real, now.
Let me debunk a myth frequented in film: dancing with a partner is not romantic nor makes you want to become romantic with your dancing partner. Why is it that the majority of films about dancing involve some sort of romance? Having been a dancer for over ten years, I know firsthand that there is nothing romantic about dancing with a partner. You’re both dripping with sweat, at least one of you is getting bruised from lifts, and you’re both just trying to keep the correct form. Also, it only works if both of you are on top of your game.
By this point, you have probably realized this is less of a review than a critique of the film’s premise.
I actually enjoyed this film more than I had anticipated. The romance between Baby and Johnny is sweet if not at times watered down. The conflict between Baby and Johnny’s social statuses, she a successful doctor’s daughter and he having lived off of jujubes until his dancing enticed women to pay him for dance lessons and/or sex, is one of the major driving forces of this film. It is the classic tale of an uptight and/or well-off person (usually a woman) falling in love with a roguish and/or poor person (usually a man), only to have to defend their choice of partner to their annoyingly “protective” family.
Besides the dancing, the film has little directorial style. It is pretty generic for a film titled Dirty Dancing.
When did you first watch Dirty Dancing and did it meet your expectations? Let us know in the comments below!
THE FILM ALIEN 