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A 17-year-old high-school student sets her sights on being a professional ballerina, but she has to put her plans on hold when her mother is killed in a car accident and she is forced to move to her father's bleak Chicago neighborhood. Intimidated by inner-city life, she turns to the clubs for refuge, where she meets a young black man who shares her love for dancing. As their mutual respect evolves, they soon discover that peer pressure is a more formidable obstacle to romance than differences in race or class.

Save the Last Dance is unfortunately a disappointing waste of talent. Despite their best efforts, Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas are let down by a shallow and somewhat dull story that is predictable throughout - there honestly wasn't one surprise in this movie, and considering I caught it late at night I'm still amazed that I managed to stay awake for the full duration.

I guess it's only fair to say that there was some half-decent emotion and drama here but again I can't help but feel it's more of a credit to the lead roles than anything else. This movie could have been so much better, and it didn't live up to my expectations in anyway, shape or form.

Save the Last Dance enjoyed a profitable release in early 2001, with box-office earnings that exceeded anyone's expectations. Its performance illustrates the staying power of a formulaic film that avoids the pitfalls and clichés that would otherwise render it forgettable. Since there's nothing new here, you'll appreciate the original quirks in a character-based plot that's just around the corner from Flashdance, and just as familiar. Sara (Julia Stiles) gave up a promising ballet career when her mother was killed while rushing to attend her daughter's crucial audition to Juilliard; Sara blames herself for the accident, and at her new, mostly African-American high school in Chicago, she's uncertain of her future.

Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas) has no such doubts; his own future is bright, and his attraction to Sara is immediate; they connect (predictably), and Sara's dormant funk emerges, with Derek's coaching, as she learns hip-hop dancing in a local club. Obligatory subplots are equally routine: Derek's sister (Kerry Washington) is a single mom struggling with her child's absentee father; Derek's best friend (Fredro Starr) feels trapped in his gangster lifestyle; and Sara's once-estranged father (Terry Kinney) is doing his best to correct past mistakes. Within the confines of this standard follow-your-dream drama, director Thomas Carter capitalises on a script that allows these characters to be real, intelligent, and thoughtful about their lives and their futures. It's obvious that Stiles's dancing was intercut with that of a professional double, but that illusion hardly matters when the rest of the film's so earnestly positive and genuine. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

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