Save the Last Dance Rating: Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Julia Stiles Sean Patrick Thomas Patrick Stewart Jennifer Jones Complete Cast (6 total)

Save the Last Dance Reviews

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We're Dancing
I'm a dancer at heart, I always have been and always will. I got this movie with high expectations, and was never disapointed. Sara is at a dance tryout waiting for her mother to come. She was upset at her mother, and when her mother was on her way, she got in a car crash and died.

Sara was sent away from her friends into a strangers house. The stranger was her dad, but the two had grown apart tremendously. The house that her dad lived in wasn't quite a house; a small shack in a predominatly black neighborhood.

Sara arrives at school to see she is the outcast in the crowd. Everyone is of mixed heritage, and here Sara is white as a ghost. She meets a girl who has a baby of her own.

Sara meets Derek and their relationship starts off rocky towards each other. They have some debates in class, both brilliant individuals. They settle down and Derek starts Sara dancing again. He trains her hour after hour, and she learns to loosen up and dance with her soul.

She takes her wrapped up point shoes and puts them back on feeling the vibe and energy of dance. Through the work outs, the two fall in love. Derek takes her to a ballet showing her what she could do in a couple years.

Sara tries out for Juliard at the end, and the judges are far by impressed and accept her on the spot. The movie is forever touching and will get you out of your seat to dance.

Don't Save the Last Dance for Later
The 2001 movie Save the Last Dance, starring Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas, is probably one of the better films I have viewed this past year. It is not your typical teenager flick where superficiality is at the core of the film. Instead of focusing solely on the drama of relationships, this romantic drama genre film deals with more mature issues. Director Thomas Carter weaves several serious themes throughout the plot, including grief and guilt, interracial relationships, and urban violence. One thing about romance genre films is that they are generally predictable, but Save the Last Dance offers several surprising plot twists.
The film begins with Sara (Julia Stiles) on a train headed for Chicago to live with her estranged musician dad, Roy (Terry Kinney), after her mother's tragic death. Sarah was an aspiring ballet dancer, and incidentally was auditioning for the Julliard School of Dance when her mother died in a car accident on the way to the audition.
Sara arrives in Chicago and is forced to live a completely different lifestyle in the inner city in her father's shoddy apartment. She attends a predominantly African American high school, where she immediately befriends Chenille (Kerry Washington), a single teenage mother. In her first English class, she gets into a debate with Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), and initially dislikes him for his "know it all" attitude. It turns out that Derek is Chenille's brother, which is an unexpected coincidence. Surprisingly, Sara adjusts to living in an African American culture quite quickly with the help of her new friends.
Sara and Derek are both presented as smart, talented individuals with their own belief systems. They are much more complex characters than I was anticipating in this film, thanks to Stiles' and Thomas' standout performances. Sara begins to take an interest in Derek when he asks her to dance at the ever-popular Steps Club. Eventually Derek becomes her hip-hop dance mentor, and that is when their relationship blossoms. Incidentally, their relationship marks the beginning of the problems for both characters.
As the film's title suggests, dancing is key to the movie because that is how many of the relationships are formed. Most of the important conflicts take place during those scenes as well. Nevertheless, the dancing in some of the scenes was not very impressive. Good dance moves should appear natural and flow along well, but much of the dancing in this film did not live up to this expectation. Much of the dance choreography appeared rough and unnatural.
The end of the film was the only part that was predictable, but the fun part really lies in getting there. The lighting in the scenes was dim most of the time, which added to making the film more serious in tone, and therefore more realistic. Furthermore, the film was paced perfectly; at no time did I feel like it was dragging on. All of the cast members displayed decent acting and characterization, with the exception of Roy (Terry Kinney). Roy's character was not very developed, but his character had the potential to be quite interesting because of his inner city lifestyle.
Overall, I would give this movie a four star rating. If you have an interest in dance, romance, or serious drama, this film is worth seeing. Even if you are not interested in any of these topics, one can appreciate the good acting displayed by the main characters. After viewing the film, I felt the urge to get up and dance, and that is precisely what I did.

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