Save the Last Dance

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

Driving what we hope is the final stake into the heart of Romeo and Juliet remakes, Save the Last Dance takes the clever notion of having the star-crossed lovers brought together through their mutual love of dance against the backdrop Chicago’s mean inner city. The result is a movie so predictable that you’ll have lines of dialogue memorized before the characters even say them.

Julia Stiles seems to be making a career of Shakespearean adaptations with 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew), Hamlet (duh), and the upcoming O (Othello). Here she stars as Sara, a young girl from the suburbs whose passion is ballet—until her mother dies and she has to move in with her deadbeat dad on the south side of the Windy City. She find herself practically the only white girl in a predominantly black school, and the usual “fish out of water” stuff ensues. She befriends Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas—argh, another three-name actor), who not only happens to be smart, funny, and handsome but—get this—also happens to be the “Best Hip-Hop Dancer in the World.” What luck for Sara, huh? Anyway, the questions Last Dance throws at you will have you in suspense, provided you’ve never seen an after-school special and are partially brain-damaged: Will these two defy everyone and find love? Will Derek stand up to his thug friends? Will Sara finally get into Julliard? Will we be asleep before the credits roll? Yes. Yes. Yes. And hell, yes.

Share