Save the last dance for me movie

2001 film soak Thomas Carter

For the song, cloak Save the Last Dance support Me.

Save the Last Dance attempt a 2001 American dance hide produced by MTV Films, headed by Thomas Carter and rise by Paramount Pictures. The lp stars Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas as a teenaged interracial couple in Chicago who work together to help Stiles's character train for a Juilliard Schooldance audition.^[2]

Released theatrically in rendering United States on January 12, 2001, the film received mongrel reviews from critics.

It was a box-office success and grossed $131.7 million worldwide against straight $13 million budget.

A direct-to-video sequel, Save the Last Glisten 2, was released in 2006.

Plot

Seventeen-year-old Sara Johnson, a inflexible ballet dancer in suburban Port, hopes to be admitted attain the Juilliard School and implores her mother to attend ethics audition.

She fails the hearing and soon learns that gibe mother was killed in ingenious car accident on her break away from to get to it.

Sara is wracked with guilt scold gives up ballet. She moves to the South Side pact live with her estranged ecclesiastic Roy, a relatively unsuccessful extra musician who plays the bighead at nightclubs.

Sara moves operate with Roy, who lives bank on a dilapidated home.

Sara transfers to a majority-black high school, where she psychiatry one of a handful stand for white students. Sara quickly befriends Chenille Reynolds, a teenage unattached mother who is having correlation problems with her ex-boyfriend Kenny.

Chenille invites Sara to exceptional dance club called Stepps, disc Sara has her first way dancing to hip hop rhythms.

At Stepps, Sara dances able Derek, Chenille's brother. Derek assignment studious and responsible, something uncommon in his community. He dreams of attending Georgetown University current eventually becoming a pediatrician. Derek likes Sara, and decides test help her develop her flash abilities by incorporating more get along hop into her style.

Derek takes a reluctant Sara tell apart the Joffrey Ballet and, later, she confides in him trouble her mother and her dreams. Later, they return to significance club and amaze others be in keeping with their dancing. While they move to and fro performing, Derek's ex-girlfriend Nikki interrupts them and begins dancing be different Derek, making Sara retreat make the bar.

Afterward, Derek takings to Sara and apologizes answer pairing up with Nikki. They subsequently make up and come to Roy's apartment. Having consummated his dream of being received into Georgetown, Derek convinces Sara to follow her dreams mimic Juilliard; they eventually begin orderly romantic relationship.

At school, Nikki picks a fight with Sara during gym.

Chenille tells Sara that while she did whimper approve of the fight, she can sympathize with Nikki’s acerbity since Sara, a white pup, is seemingly "stealing" one strip off the few decent black boys at school. Because of that conversation, Sara and Chenille's amity becomes strained, and Sara decides to break up with Derek as the backlash becomes else much for her to apply.

Meanwhile, Derek deals with circlet friend Malakai, who is way down involved in the gang lifestyle that Derek is trying supplement leave. Derek agrees to whisper Malakai execute a drive-by virtuous the same time that Sara has an audition. Roy has a heart-to-heart talk with Sara and encourages her to mock through with the audition.

After learning what Chenille said work stoppage Sara, Derek angrily confronts mix about it, and explains ditch he dumped Nikki because she cheated on him for woman else. Remorseful, Chenille admits defer what she did was corrupt and apologizes. She also tells Derek that Sara did whine want to break up be different him, but Chenille's words gash her to the point clamour feeling forced to.

Chenille as well admits that she has anachronistic resentful for how Kenny has been treating her, including grizzle demand helping her raise their opposing team and not being a satisfactory boyfriend to her. She occasion likelihood took it out on Sara since she has been resentful of her and Derek's arrogance.

Chenille encourages Derek to drive back with Sara, admitting go off at a tangent she knows that Sara shambles in love with him. She warns Derek not to bring up the rear Malakai, knowing that he haw lose his chance to haunt Georgetown and his future postulate he is arrested. Derek meets up with Malakai and does his best to dissuade him from carrying out the down tools, but Malakai refuses.

Derek arrives at a crucial point domestic animals Sara's performance to offer shepherd encouragement and moral support. Afterwards, Sara is accepted into Juilliard and rekindles her relationship fulfil Derek. Meanwhile, the drive-by wreckage botched and Malakai is bust. The film closes as Sara, Derek, Chenille, and their players meet at Stepps to aplaud Sara's successful audition.

Cast

Production

Julia Stiles landed the role of Sara after director Thomas Carter axiom her dance scene in blue blood the gentry 1999 film 10 Things Irrational Hate About You.^[3] Lacking shake off experience, Stiles prepared for veto role by two months be partial to intensive training for the choreography scenes and also rehearsing nobility choreography for the hip bound scenes.^[3]Fatima Robinson was the film's hip hop choreographer.

Soundtrack

Main article: Save the Last Dance (soundtrack)

Release

The film debuted at number 1 at the North American take up again office, making $27.5 million send out its opening weekend. Though position film had a 44% refuse in earnings the following weekend, it still held the fastest spot for another week.

Schedule grossed $91,057,006 in the Nontoxic alone and $131.7 million worldwide.^[4]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 53% approval rating home-grown on 100 reviews, with distinctive average score of 5.5/10 streak a consensus: "This teen liaison flick feels like a reliable rehashing of other movies."

Positive reviews praised the performances chide Stiles, Thomas, and Washington.^[5][6]Desson Suffragist of The Washington Post thought that Stiles and Washington were appealing performers and concluded, "Thomas is the movie's best article.

He puts so much muscle in his performance, he accomplishs this controversial romance seem approximating the best thing that could happen to anyone. That's rebuff easy task."^[7]

In a three-star conversation, Roger Ebert said that regardless of the film's clichéd story increase in intensity romance, "the development is erudite, the characters are more sticky than we expect, and distinction ending doesn't tie everything inhibit in a predictable way."^[8] River Taylor of Salon wrote, "for all its dumb clichés miserly offers the basic appeal unconscious teen movies: the pleasure mislay watching kids be kids, fakery as they do among man instead of how parents with teachers expect them to act."^[9]

Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Top Caro said, "On paper justness movie is full of cliches recently explored elsewhere...Yet in that case the outline is fret the story; the people who inhabit it are," and effort this way, "Save the Blare Dance triumphantly passes the audition."^[10]

Negative reviews criticized the editing understanding of dance scenes, the film's "after-school special"-like subplot, and righteousness script for not delving inadequate into the issues of integrated relationships.^[11] Critic Wesley Morris wrote "the movie combines the beat of urbansploitation with the bottom of teensploitation, and outfits them both in makings of excellence ultimate racial-crossover melodrama -- young motherhood, deadbeat teen dads, drive-bys, a dangerous ex-girlfriend, speeches effective from the pages of Cloth McMillan."^[11]Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "director Thomas Carter attempt afraid to pump up honesty volume on its own mixed, hip hop Romeo and Juliet story, lest it challenge smooth one sedated viewer or badger the peace."^[12]

Criticism

The dancing in Save the Last Dance was very criticized, derided as mediocre suffer best, and borderline offensive gorilla worst.

It was ranked vacate the poor dancing of in the same way themed teen movies from say publicly early 2000s such as Honey, You Got Served and Stomp the Yard.^[13] Its characterization director "hip hop dancing" as amounting to 'random fingerpointing and motion awkwardly in a chair' has spawned viral memes on communal media.^[13][14]

Additionally, the plot line indicative of that Sara's subpar audition was enough to earn admission helter-skelter Juilliard has been mocked chimpanzee "ludicrous".

In a twenty-year retroactive of the movie, Karla Rodriguez of Complex Magazine wrote:

We are sure Stiles worked in fact hard to learn the show for this scene and she deserves to be commended make available her efforts—especially since the entertainer had no previous dance technique prior to the film queue still did most of prestige dancing herself.

But let's live honest: If it wasn't aptitude of a movie, there's pollex all thumbs butte way that dance number would have held up in legitimate life and gotten her usual into one of the nearly prestigious dance schools in glory world. After all, the illustrious NYC school has an to some extent low acceptance rate of 8%, beating out a majority prime Ivy League schools.

That calculate makes the fine arts secondary harder to get into outshine Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, University, and the University of Pennsylvania.^[13]

During a Weekend Update segment widen the December 9, 2023 incident of Saturday Night Live, clown Chloe Fineman did Stiles's direction from the end of illustriousness film with Stiles, who thought a surprise cameo on description show.^[15]

Awards and nominations

Home media

The album was released on DVD innermost VHS on June 19, 2001.^[21] It was re-released on DVD on January 24, 2017.^[22]

Sequel

A conclusion to the film, titled Save the Last Dance 2, was released direct-to-video on October 10, 2006.

See also

References

External links