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Noel Vera

Anne Fletcher's "Step Up" (2006) is anything but--a clichéd,
unimaginative retelling of a story as old as time, or at least as
old as boiled corn (which I despise; give me roasted anytime). Poor
boy Tyler (Channing Tatum) meets cute with upper-class dancer Nora
(Jenna Dewan); they choreograph a few dance steps together, fall
limply in love with each other. "Flashdance," "Fame," "Footloose,"
or anything with Mickey Rooney, anyone?

This one is a little more limp than usual--the only thing writers
Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg can cook up by way of conflict are
the class difference between the two, the call of friendship (by
Tyler's best bro Mac (Damaine Radcliff), and Tyler's own sense of
inadequacy. Low-key stuff, and not unworthy of film adaptation, but
it takes someone with a precise hand at sketching character and
emotional nuance to make it anything special. Adler (who seems to
have dance in the brain--she also scripted "Save the Last Dance"
(2001)) thought up the story but hasn't really polished the
screenplay; Rosenberg, whose career seems mainly to have been spent
on TV, brings the wrong kind of polish: timid, conventional, largely
impersonal. Dancers' lives, from what we know about them, are often
dramatic and volatile; couldn't Adler communicate more of that
onscreen?

A huge part of the charm of a movie like this rests on the cast, or
at least on the pair of star-crossed (well, part-crossed, anyway)
lovers; the filmmakers get it halfway right. Tatum isn't what I'd
call an actor, not yet, but with his enormous frame, sullen yet not
unsympathetic face, and physically intense dancing, he's got a fair
amount of charisma. He makes the character of Tyler--a dolt who
can't think of anything to do with his life besides steal cars and
play basketball--more interesting than he has any right to be, and
even the sudden changes of direction ("I'll help you;" "I won't help
you;" "I quit;" I want a second chance") are halfway persuasive--at
least if he came up to you for the umpteenth time asking for a
second chance, you might actually pause to consider for a moment
before kicking him out on his musclebound behind.

Dewan as Nora is a disaster--a pretty doll with curly hair and not
much else. When she dances she's got speed and some power, but stand
her up and ask her to act and all she can do is blink those big eyes
prettily, as if asking "huh?" I imagine a dance movie's in trouble
if your eyes keeps wandering away from the lead to rest more
appreciatively on her two co-stars--Drew Sidora as Nora's best
friend Lucy, for example, with her far more expressive face and hot-
to-trot body, and Rachel Griffiths as the sensually smoldering
Director Gordon, who heads the school (I doubt if the character of
Gordon was meant to smolder; it's just that I don't think Griffiths
is capable of hiding it even if she wanted to).

Griffiths especially is what I'd call "trouble on two legs;" you
have to remember that Griffiths played Arabella in Michael
Winterbottom's great (in my opinion) 1996 adaptation of "Jude the
Obscure," and kept pulling Christopher Eccleston's Jude Fawley's
attention away from Kate Winslet's not inconsiderable charms (which
not many actresses can do). On her first interview of Tyler in her
office she was wearing this low-hanging blouse I kept trying to peer
down into; every time she throws a stern glare at the poor boy I
keep expecting him to melt into his oversize rubber shoes. She's too
much woman for Dewan to compete against, much less stand beside;
even after the two lovers have admitted their great love for each
other, every time Director Gordon popped up I kept wanting to shout
to Nora "Don't trust her! Keep your man under lock and key!" Nothing
happens, of course; I was probably expecting a more interesting
movie.

If the drama's such a hackneyed failure--with a hilariously staged
climactic drive-by shooting to provide a much needed (and largely
unearned) tragic turn of events--there's really nothing here to keep
you in your seat except the dance numbers. To Fletcher's credit,
they're not your standard-issue MTV-style production numbers, with
the camera swinging this way and that and the footage shredded up
and mixed together like so much cole slaw: Fletcher believes in
keeping the choreography (which she herself did) as coherent as
possible, and she honors it by using long takes and medium to long
shots, keeping the bodies within the frame and not jerking the
camera around like a coke fiend practicing self-abuse.

The camerawork is decent (not distinguished) but the choreography--
well, it doesn't copy Jerome Robbins, or Bob Fosse, which I suppose
is a good thing. I'm not sure what it is--Generic College Thesis, I
imagine, something a dance student with middling talent might dream
up (and hence appropriate for the movie, I suppose), but not all
that deserving of the kind of respectful treatment Fletcher gives it
(maybe she should have chopped it up after all). I suppose younger
folks might like it, for the handsome leads (sorry--I mean the
handsome lead); me, I'd be happy to just enroll in that school, and
find myself under Ms. Griffith's stern, smoldering supervision.

(First published in Businessworld, 9/22/06)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)