Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Juliet Doherty, Lauren Esposito, Joel Burke, Carolyn Bock
Intro:
...well-paced, strongly performed and highly entertaining...
With a deft and stylishly assured hand, The Red Shoes: Next Step Australian co-directors Joanne Samuel (who famously featured as Mel’s doomed wife in Mad Max and successfully jumped into the director’s chair for 2020’s The Legend Of The Five) and Jesse A’Hern (who makes his directorial here after producing the aforementioned The Legend Of The Five) cannily mix the familiar tropes from a variety of genres – the dance movie, the coming of age drama, the teen flick, romance, and even the redemptive sports flick – into a well-paced, strongly performed and highly entertaining whole. It’s a film wholly on the side of its youthful cast of characters, and it treats them with respect and warmth, which is not always the case with films about young people. And even more importantly, The Red Shoes: Next Step is unashamedly a film about dance, and it lets its dance scenes unfold naturally and unhurriedly, with the directors hanging back and winningly allowing their talented stars to really strut their stuff. The beautifully choreographed, extended dance sequences roll out without fussy over-editing, and stand as true highlights of the film.
The Red Shoes: Next Step opens on a tragedy, as talented young dancer Sam Cavanaugh (talented dancer/actress Juliet Doherty from Driven To Dance and High Strung Free Dance) struggles to cope with the shock death of her beloved older sister, also a promising dancer. Grief stricken and adrift, Sam gives up on dance and instead takes to partying with her childhood friend Eve (a strong turn from Lauren Esposito), which leads to a bout of court-appointed community service. But instead of picking up rubbish off the street, Sam’s parents pull a few strings and get their daughter to do her time cleaning toilets and mopping floors at her old ballet school The Harlow Academy. Under the watchful, steely eye of the school’s icy founder and head teacher Miss Harlow (Carolyn Bock gets her mean on very effectively), Sam slowly, uncertainly makes her journey back to ballet with the help of handsome, supportive dancer Ben (the charming Joel Burke).
Though the film’s obviously nebulous, international-reaching setting is a little confusing (the film is clearly lensed in Sydney, with shots of Centrepoint and The Anzac Bridge, yet Sam and most of her dance school classmates are American, as is her friend Eve, along with other characters), it only very marginally detracts from the enjoyment of The Red Shoes: Next Step. Juliet Doherty and Joel Burke make for an attractive, sympathetic screen couple, while the film’s major subplot involving Eve’s downward slide and her simmering anger towards Sam adds welcome grit and intensity to the film. Moving and sensitively handled, The Red Shoes: Next Step skilfully balances its beautifully choreographed dance sequences and its character driven drama, expertly knitting them together to stir up an even greater sense of emotional resonance.
