Let's look at the basic setup of this movie: a nerdy white high school girl focused entirely on academics wants to get into an elite college but is denied entrance for a contrived reason. In order to get into the college, she'll need to learn to dance from her best friend, a poc character who encourages her to let loose and live. Along the way, they're opposed by a gay diva (well, his sexuality is never mentioned, but glitter is practically dripping from every limp-wrested gesture), they have to put together a ragtag group of non-dancers who suddenly become amazing dancers over a couple of months, and the main character falls for a college-aged guy with a disability that gives him a tragic backstory (which conveniently disappears whenever the character needs to do something that might be affected by the disability). The main character is also having to hide her now-slipping grades from her mother who desperately wants her to get into the college, but the mother realizes at the end that all that really matters is for her daughter to have fun.
What a thrillingly unique tale.
It could have almost been really fun. The visual effects in the first few minutes were lively; unfortunately, they were dropped after the intro. If the effects had remained, it might have made up for the lackluster choreography. I know nothing about dance and even I could tell that a few of the scenes just didn't work, especially the rival dance team's performance in the final competition-you're telling me that they're the best team around and *that's* what they do for the competition of the year? Not buying it. And if the love interest's disability had actually, yknow, affected him for more than just a tragic backstory and the first ten minutes of us meeting him, it could have been decent representation. If the diva rival had had any more personality than "diva," it could have avoided falling quite so much into the cliche. But the fact of the matter is that a "diverse" cast...doesn't really serve the cause of representation well if you make all their stories into cliches that revolve entirely around White Girl. But that would require a bit of thought, which Netflix clearly wasn't willing to risk adding.
Review of Work It
