Our Review
The film has a special place in my heart just to its inspiration kick starting Emo Movies during a slow period. The movie is quite a classic emo with teen angst, physiological troubles and a struggle to do something completely insignificant such as dancing. And that is about as deep as it goes.
Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles) used to dance but her mother is killed while see rushes to arrive in time for Sara’s audition for Julliard and is killed. Sara puts her dancing shoes away and heads off to live with her dad where she becomes emerged in black culture at her local high school.
Of course already we know what the outcome of the movie will be. One day someone will be brave enough to end it the unpredictable way but that film will not be Save the Last Dance. The interesting part of the movie however will be how Sara is going to get there. As Harry Kim said on Star Trek Voyager, “perhaps it’s the journey that’s important.”
The movie proudly flaunts some hard truths and does a good job of getting inside the teenagers heads and bringing out the memories that haunt us all. After all, dancing may not be hugely important but when we were that age, it was before we had lost our idealism and it was still the end of the world. Oh for those days of belief again.
The dancing and other such sequences are mediocre pushing on entertaining – and I have a thing with R n B, so go in there with an open mind and you will probably enjoy it. There are also some great sequences contrasting the idealism of some with the harsh reality of drive by shootings for others.
Save the Last Dance at first look seems to have it all – the sharp contrasts, emo subject matter andsome nice sequences. This perhaps leaves the film spread a little thin but it still has deeper subject matter than most. Beneath the dancing lies a solid emo movie.
Chris Worfolk
In a Nutshell
"Beneath the dancing lies a solid emo movie"
Rating
Movie was rated 74 out of 100
[ Compare ]
User Ratings
4 users have rated this movie, with an
average rating of 68.
Critic's Reviews
Emo Movies said: "Despite its lack of publicity among the wider audience, there is little that I can fault with this film"
Read more...
Also Consider
•
Erin Brockovich
•
Rounders
|
