How She Move (DVD)

For those that enjoy raving about the dancing in both of the Step Up flicks, what they'll find in the independent coming of age urban melodrama How She Move will absolutely blow their minds. The moves on display in this film are electric, maybe some of the best I've ever seen put to film. Whenever the music starts and the bodies begin to sway this little picture becomes almost poetic, the powers of modern dance providing a dynamic visual punch that truly one of a kind.

If only the rest of the movie lived up to all that hyperbole. Dramatically, writer Annmarie Morais and director Ian Iqbal Rashid's film is about as familiar and routine as these things get. This is Rocky by way of the inner city school system and told through the eyes of a young girl (superbly portrayed by newcomer Rutina Wesley) determined to get out of the ghetto and leave her splintering family behind.

In other words, we've seen all this before, countless times, and even though the locale may be different and the family dynamics a bit more culturally intriguing, it's hard not to watch all of this and ponder just what might have been. There are times this all starts to feel like something more suited for the Lifetime television network, and how this proved to be so popular with audiences at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival is more than a little bit beyond me.

In a way, I was reminded of Real Women Have Curves while watching this, the wonderful 2002 feature that introduced the world to "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera. Both tell similar stories (albeit the latter sans dancing), but whereas the earlier feature had bracingly unforgettable three dimensional characters viewers could feel for and relate to, this one relies too much upon cliché and pap sentimentality to get its point across.

Thankfully the dance truly is amazing. The moves on display are mind-blowing. Better, the final team performances are pretty much shown in their entirety, allowing viewers to see for themselves the body-bending brilliance of the artists and athletes bringing vaulting across the screen. There are times when I had to hold my breath in awe, Wesley and company doing things I'd never have believed capable had I not witnessed them for myself.

Unsurprisingly, the DVD for How She Move is pretty bare-bones. There are three featurettes only one of which, "From Rehearsal to Film," is really worth a person's time (it's the only one to intimately discuss the time, energy and practice it took to bring the dance sequences to life). Otherwise the only other extra is a collection of trailers.

Basically, if you love watching people dance then the movie is worth a rental. If you want to see a fantastic debut from a young actress worth keeping an eye on, then the movie is worth a rental. If you want to see something with an original story and three dimensional characters, then the movie isn't worth the rental. As to where a person fits on that particular check off list, I guess I'll just have to leave the answer to that question up to them.