"Across Grace Alley" is an American 25-minute live action short film from 2013, so this one has its 5th anniversary this year and it is the most recent of not too many efforts as writer and director for Ralph Macchio that many still know today of course from "The Karate Kid". He also plays one of the supporting characters here. The most known cast member otherwise is probably Marsha Mason for all her Oscar nominations, but the central character is played by child actor Ben Hyland, not known to me and apparently not related to Modern Family's Sarah Hyland. It's the story of a boy who deals with his parents not loving each other anymore and he finds the art of dance to get along better with the situation thanks to a sensual neighbor. Maybe you need to be interested in dancing yourself, or even perform this as a sport to appreciate the film here, but for me it did not work out. The connection between the soothing dances and the problems it solves to some extent never seems fulfilling to me and that's really all the film is about. The performances are tolerable, but don't really impress me that much either. The consequence of thisd slightly messed-up key component is that the film does have an ounce of pretense to it and this is also true for some of the fdialogues used in here. It takes itself far more seriously than it has the right to given the artistic outcome and overall quality. Weak is more frequent in here than strong, so I give this one a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Review of Across Grace Alley
