Footloose

It's allowed to dance again. With the recent wave of dance movies like the Step Up series proving to be extremely lucrative, Hollywood now keeps reaching into its mothballs to revive successful genre representatives of the past. The latest victim of this remake craze is the cult film Footloose, which once made Kevin Bacon a star. Considering how the remake of Fame turned out, there was only bad things to fear for Footloose as well. But it's arguably one of the biggest surprises of the 2011 movie year: this remake is pretty darn good - and in some ways, even better than the original!

The story is, except for minor (but not unimportant) nuances, the same: Big city kid Ren MacCormack (Kenny Wormland) arrives from Boston to the sleepy hamlet of Bomont, where he is henceforth to live with his uncle and aunt. Ren feels like a stranger in his new home from the start. When he learns that listening to loud music and dancing are forbidden in Bomont after a tragic accident that took the lives of five young people, he finally believes that he will never be truly happy here. But then he meets and falls in love with the beautiful Ariel (Julianne Hough), daughter of village priest Shaw Moor (Dennis Quaid). Too bad that it was Moor, of all people, who was the initiator of the dance ban after the tragic accident that also cost his son his life, and who does everything in his power to protect his daughter from what he considers harmful influences. But Ren won't give up: he wants to bring the dance and the joy of life back to Bomont - and maybe win Ariel's heart in the process.

In 1984 Footloose became a real surprise hit, the soundtrack dominated the charts the many young people stormed the dance studios, inspired by the film. Many scenes from the original are now cult and no pop culture of recent decades can be imagined without them. And even today, the film possesses enormous charm - at least from the perspective of those who saw and loved it back then. But younger viewers won't be able to relate to the fashions and dance styles of yesteryear, nor do lines like Milling a hot sock still work in 2011. That's something to keep in mind when evaluating the remake. After all, 2011's Footloose isn't made for fans of yesteryear, but for a new generation. Certainly, it may be doubted that this new version will have a similar success as the original. Because cult just can't be forced. But that aside, the remake is a really well done affair that only minimally varies the original, but that's exactly why it works so well.

So Craig Brewer's version doesn't begin with Ren already in Bomont. Rather, the audience gets to see the tragic accident that leads to the ban on dancing and the consequences for the community. In this way, he manages to make the story seem relatively believable even in 2011, especially since, unlike in the original, the ban on dancing is limited only to Bomont. The ban on vile literature, which was still an issue in 1984, has been dispensed with, as it simply wouldn't make sense in the age of the internet and ebooks.

Other aspects of the original, on the other hand, have been carried over almost one-to-one, from dialogue sequences and décor to music. And here it's positively noticeable that Brewer, whose highly acclaimed films Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan were closely tied to music, knows how important the songs were to the original's cult status. So then some of the hits are taken from the original, but later sound in cover versions. These, as well as the new songs of the album, use different musical genres, from rock to pop, country to R'n'B, with which Brewer wanted to show the versatility of the music scene in times of electronic media. The dance styles presented in the film also have a certain versatility. To simply say that there is more gyrating of the hips in the new version would not do justice to the work of the choreographers.

Footloose, like so many other remakes, may be unnecessary in itself. But as a new interpretation of a familiar material for a new generation, the film is really well done. Especially as it shows something that many current dance films sadly lack: while dance there is often a struggle, it's all about battles and aggression, here the focus is on joy and a love of life. Dance is meant to bring a community paralyzed by grief back together and show how beautiful life can be. Dancing and music that just gets into your legs can make a significant contribution to that. And that's exactly what makes the 2011 version of the cult film so refreshing, so entertaining and just: absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp