For a couple months now, The Blind Spot Challenge has been rolling on without me. Sorta. I've been watching. Mostly. I haven't been writing. Obviously. Now I'm back. For now. And I'll keep it going. Hopefully. The challenge is headed up by Sofia over at Returning Videotapes. My apologies to her. I'm trying to be more consistent with this the rest of the year. Wish me luck, guys. If nothing else, I've got this movie to talk about...
Why did I pick it? My movie blogger reason is that it's an iconic film that I haven't seen. More accurately, I haven't seen it in its entirety. I was a teenage boy when Dirty Dancing came out and it didn't appear to be anywhere near macho enough to warrant my attention. I couldn't escape the movie completely, of course. In the three decades since this movie's release, I must've come across it on TV a few thousand times as I was flipping channels. Sometimes I stopped and watched, sometimes not. This means I've seen every part of this, just not all at once and not in the right order.
A few years ago, I came across the Dirty Dancing DVD in a bargain bin somewhere. I was about to pass it over when my youngest daughter spotted it, picked it up, and begged me to buy it. She had watched it on Netflix and fell in love with it. Since that day, she's watched it quite often, but for whatever reason, I still hadn't. I decided it was time to change all that and see what the big fuss is all about. My daughter made sure that she was in on my enlightening.
The fuss focuses on Frances, a.k.a. Baby (Jennifer Grey). It's 1963, and her well-to-do family is on their annual summer vacation that she doesn't really want to be there for. They stay in some swanky resort with other swanky people, eating swanky food, and frown upon the help. The help, made up of way cooler locals, doesn't only wait tables and clean, they also teach dance classes to their rich clients. One of those dance teachers is Johnny (Patrick Swayze), whom Baby immediately takes a liking to due to his bad boy sheen. Since he's the proverbial boy from the wrong side of the tracks, she has to sneak around to be with him. He takes her where the locals hang out, has run-ins with his ex, and exposes her to regular folk.
The first thing everyone talks about, aside from the iconic dance move and the quote about babies in corner, is how great the love story is. That's not really the case. It's generic, at best. It dutifully follows the steps taken by many movies before it and retread by many movies after it. The chemistry between Grey and Swayze elevates it a bit, but it's not the explosive romance I'd been led to believe. Looking back, it's a bit odd that Swayze became the much bigger star given that Grey gave the clearly better performance. He's not bad, just not on the same level as his co-star in this particular film. Still, they did have a spark that much of the production smoothly rides.
Writing is the film's bigger issue. Of the performers, it most hurt Swayze and Jerry Orbach, as Baby's dad. For Swayze, he was stuck with the movie's hokiest dialogue, including that famous baby line. Perhaps it's been parodied too often over the ensuing years, but it just made me chuckle when he actually said it. His Johnny also comes across as whiny. This detracts from the edginess the film works really hard to create for him. In Orbach's case, his Dr. Houseman is neutered. He has no spine until the plot requires him to. Besides hat, he's a punching bag for his daughter's verbal jabs. I his exchanges with her, he's mostly used for reaction shots. Thankfully, many of the ones he gives are glorious.
The writing also focused on the wrong person. The story of Baby and Johnny is fine, and certainly the more commercially viable one, as it has proven to be. However, it's far less interesting than one of its subplots. That story deals with Johnny's ex-girlfriend, Penny (Cynthia Rhodes). She's a local girl who finds she's pregnant by a co-worker with a brighter future than hers, who also happens to be dating Baby's sister. She still has a bit of a thing for Johnny, too. There is so much more meat on that bone than the main plot. I perked up whenever the film dealt with Penny and spent much of the latter half of the runtime wishing the movie were about her ordeal rather than Penny. Had it went that route, it may not have been as beloved as it is, but it could potentially have been a much bolder film with more important things to say.
If you've been reading closely, you may have figured out that this is one of those reviews where I spend lots of time bashing the movie in question even though I don't really hate it. There is some lighthearted humor I enjoy. There are also some high-energy scenes revolving around the locals that really help the movie find a nice rhythm. That rhythm keeps the film move along at a nice pace without dragging or rushing. Of course, there are a couple of transcendent moments involving the same dance move - one in water, and the more iconic one on land. The other issues remain, though. Therefore, I might not have had the time of my life watching Dirty Dancing, but it wasn't bad.
Click below for reviews of other dance movies
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar