Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: A white girl from the country comes to Chicago to live with her father and discovers the world of inner-city hip-hop and, like, black people.
Biased, pithy comments: Black culture is occasionally portrayed as more authentic, more real than white American culture---``Bulworth,'' among other movies, makes that claim. This movie makes a much more gentle claim---that if one spends the time, one can be part of any culture you like; as Stiles intones, ``There's just one people.'' Hip-hop, then, becomes half rhythm and half attitude, and parts of this movie seem to be a step-guide for suburban teens to pick up the hip-to-the-hop (``Step and kick and step and kick''). Still, the movie takes a look, if not a particularly in-depth one, at the internal and external barriers between people caught up in poverty, racism, and crime. There are some movie-of-the-week moments, and everyone learns something about themselves and then is all happy, but the movie has flashes of genuine honesty. Alas, this coming-of-age drama is saddled with the ``Flashdance'' plot and the last line from the Julliard judge is the corniest, most unrealistic thing ever. If they had left all of this out and just concentrated on Sarah and Derek (and dropped the stupid gangster subplot with Fredro Starr), they would have had a better movie. Probably fun for the teen and pre-teen crowd, but a little simplistic for the older folk despite having its heart in the right place.
Other Notes: Deleted scenes on the DVD are even more preachy and aimless.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Julia Stiles, Sean Patrick Thomas
Directed by: Thomas Carter