I'm always a bit wary when finally getting to movies that had their big moment in the sun many decades ago. Flashdance may not be a film that many rush to watch or rewatch nowadays, but it certainly made enough impact on pop culture to feel very familiar to everyone. The soundtrack is full of great tunes, the plotting is as predictable as expected, and there's a couple of dance sequences that remain more well-known today than anything from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
It's the age-old tale of a young woman who welds by day and dances by night, working shifts at a bar while dreaming about joining a prestigious ballet school. The young woman is Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals), and she soon catches the eye of her boss, Nick Hurley (Michael Nouri). Other people around Alex have different dreams. Jeanie (Sunny Johnson) wants to be celebrated for her ice-skating skills, Richie (Kyle T. Heffner) is a cook who longs to be a stand-up comedian, and Johnny C. (Lee Ving) wants to poach both Alex and Jeanie for his club, where the girls dance with less clothing on.
Written by Thomas Hedley Jr. (billed here as Tom Hedley) and Joe Eszterhas, and directed with the usual style and polish expected from Adrian Lyne, despite this being only his second feature, Flashdance holds up as a surprisingly interesting film for a couple of reasons. It's still essentially only one step away from being a teen-friendly fairytale romance, but the screenplay works hard to present one or two refreshingly interesting elements, not least of which is the agency and confidence of the main character.
Alex may be young, she may be striving to follow a dream that she's still also slightly afraid of, but she is very aware of the world that is already working to grind down her and her friends. She's also comfortable in her own skin in a way that disarms the older Nick. I liked watching her battle her way through each day, even if not all of those battles seemed completely necessary. Because that's another great thing about Alex. She's far from perfect, and some moments make her feel more like the antagonist than the protagonist in her own story.
The writers also deliver a surprise in the ways they juxtapose the potential silliness of the main plot points with moments that feel a bit more grounded and gritty. I'm not saying this is the Hollywood equivalent of a Ken Loach movie, far from it, but it tries to show why some people will keep taking a number of risks to drag themselves toward one lovely moment in the sunshine after years spent being rained on. It also avoids having most of the main characters judging the dancing women for making some money that way, although there's definitely a tiresome dividing line laid down between those who dance provocatively and those who dance topless.
Beals is an appealing leading lady, and convinces in both the emotional moments and the dance sequences (helped enormously by the work of Marine Jahan and others). Nouri isn't too bad either, although has to spend most of his times in scenes being outshone by Beals' wardrobe. Johnson is easy to like, Heffner is easy to be irritated by (his character feels more like someone destined to be the second or third victim in some slasher movie sequel), and Ving is an odd mix of menace and empty bravado. It's also worth mentioning Cynthia Rhodes, who made her way into three dance-based films in the 1980s that could all be considered iconic, even if one feels much more forgotten than the other two nowadays.
I'm glad to have finally watched this. It's not a true great, although many who saw it when it was first released may feel differently about it, but it's better than some of the other films from this era that are held within a safe bubble of nostalgia. I guess . . . all's well that ends weld.
6/10
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