Why I love the film


I'm always amazed how films can engage you despite any tangible substance. The plot is ridiculous at best, Stiles' character's likelihood of attending an all black school seems improbable at best. But despite the hokey setup I love this film. Granted the music and dancing is in itself worth the price of admission, but mainly I believe the characters are simply wonderful. Julia Stiles has moved on to bigger films and yet she is somehow endearing in this film. Kerry Washington who is a big star today and yet her street savvy ghetto girl is still one of her best performances. Finally, Sean Patrick Thomas is an actor who I've only seen in one other film "Barbershop " and I have to wonder why. He brings intelligence and humor to all his roles and should certainly be a bigger star. I guess substance isn't always necessary.

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While I've seen some films where the character's life situation suddenly changes dramatically in a way that doesn't make sense (one of the "Bring It On" movies was definitely guilty of this*), in this instance, it does make sense. Sara's parents weren't together and apparently hadn't been in years--it was pretty much said that her dad had been fairly disinterested as a parent all those years. Her dad also seemed to make his living as a musician in local bars, which may not be a stable source of income, so he went for a cheap living arrangement and didn't think about the schools in the area (he obviously never expected his daughter would be coming to live with him.)

Then surprise, his ex-wife dies, and he ends up with custody of his daughter. Since it's indicated that it's in the middle of her senior year when all this happens, he's not going to waste his time (and what little money he likely has) to move somewhere else, nor would he have money to send her to a private school. (One could argue Sara's mother may have had life insurance and other assets, but that would have taken time to sort out, and Sara needed a place immediately.)

So I could see Sara ending up in a school quite different from the one she was at before--her dad simply never considered he might end up with her and didn't plan his life around her possible schooling needs. By the time it ever came up, she was almost done and he probably didn't see a reason to make a lifestyle change (and possibly couldn't have anyway.) I suppose she could have stayed with the family of a friend where she was and finished out her senior year there, but her dad may have felt it was his responsibility. (He did seem regretful over their lost time together.)

*--One of the "Bring It On" movies showed the character's father losing his job which meant he couldn't keep them in the million-dollar house and the fancy school district the character was in. He'd gotten a new job immediately, but they showed the family going to a school district so destitute that they couldn't afford books for all the students. *That* seemed a little too exaggerated for me. I could see the dad no longer being able to afford an upper-class lifestyle, but if he got another job immediately, that would indicate to me he had skills that were in demand, and that while he might've had to take a pay cut, it wouldn't have likely been so dramatic that the family would have dropped *that* hard. I figured more likely they would have wound up in a solid middle-class, possibly upper-middle-class neighborhood.

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... her dad simply never considered he might end up with her and didn't plan his life around her possible schooling needs.
Absolutely! I can't believe the number of posters claiming the scenario outlined, which sees Sara attending that urban Chicago school as completely unreal. The dad's a (not hugely successful) Chicago musician. Why not? I think it's very believable for the reasons you've outlined.

I like the characters, the way they're drawn, the blending of ballet and hip-hop dancing, again, in a very believable way and the fact that the movie has the guts to depict an inter-racial romance, which even today seem to be frequently avoided or sidestepped in mainstream American movies.🐭

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I really liked this film because of it's simple premise, the characters, and happy ending!

Having seen it in the past, i was sure that Sean's character was going to get shot by his hoody friend, or caught in crossfire by rival gang. I loved the way they overcame their adversity.. Come on.. Sometimes there has to be a happy ending.

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For me the plot was totally realistic but the dancing wasn't. I relate to this film One) I used to dance ballet for years. And I auditioned for Julliard, just not for dance. and Two) And this is why the plot is totally realistic to me. When my parents got divorced, and I decided (for reasons at the time) I wanted to go live with my dad instead of my mom, he had moved into a different neighborhood which wasn't a suburb and wasn't right in the city either. Not even a "ghetto" neighborhood. Literally just a different neighborhood much closer to the city..like a bridge away into the city....and not the rich mostly white surbub I grew up in. But because he was in the area it was in had a High School that was an rough, mostly black people and white people were the minority school. And all the areas it encompassed, were basically kind of rougher neighborhoods that weren't even in the city. You had to walk through metal detectors, and there were far more black kids than white. But all the white kids were in "AP" classes or all together in most of the core studies, and only mixed usually when in gym, choir, band, etc etc. But there def were black kids in my history class and math class (I was in special ED for math) and science class. But my English class was all white kids. And sometimes white kids got taunted, but if there were any fights I ever witnessed, it wasnt some dumb racial white kid on black kid fight.. it was more just black people fighting. I think most of the white kids kept to themselves to not bring attention to themselves, or they just had friends who aren't all white and they acted kind of black. This is literally a school that was 15 mins at most away from my far too privileged suburban school in a rich neighborhood. So if in this film her dad moved to a crappy part of Chicago she'd absolutely be going to a school far more racially one sided than mine was. And definitely rougher in terms of shootings, fights, attitudes, etc. It made total sense to me. Her dancing on the other hand was not good enough at all to get into Julliard.


But it did get so hard for me, I eventually moved back with my mom to finish up school somewhere different. It severely humbled me. And made me realize just how difficult it can be to feel like the minority that doesn't quite "make sense" being there just because you're out numbered or expected to be something you're not. Everyone assumed any of white kids who went there would be rich or thought we were better? Not at all the case. The rules were definitely more strict too because of more conflict and issues which I wasn't used to and could not stand. But making friends was pretty difficult. I was lucky to have made the friends I did but literally didn't feel like I could finish out going to school there. That is what is so crazy about literally just growing up in very different areas. I wasn't racist then and I am not now. But because of what I was used to, and how I grew up in such a privlidged way, it was too difficult for me to be in that type of environment. Maybe one thing that seemed unrealistic was how easy it seemed to be for her--- to just move to a new school, after losing her mom, and the school being so different to what she was used to. It is sort of improbable a black girl would just take her under her wing, and she'd get a super hot new BF, and her life would be dandy and she was tough enough to make the rest work. Although I guess she was just going there for senior year (I had two more years left) And everyone is different. Maybe I wasn't "tough" enough or resilient enough but I fee like 4 out of 5 privileged white girls who grow up from a baby that way and are thrown into a inner city school like that would be culture shocked and terrified. And not handle it as well as she did.

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