DIRTY DANCING – emile ardolino – 4.3 / 10

I was halfway into this movie before I figured out that it was set in the 1950s (and really, I’m still not entirely sure). So poorly is the past recreated in the film that I just thought Patrick Swayze’s dance instructor was driving an old car because he wanted to be like James Dean. Though how a guy in tights with a penchant for twirling could think himself James Dean, I don’t know.

Anyway, the plot of the film revolves around the two-- possibly three-- week vacation a rich Jewish family from New York takes in the Catskills. It’s interesting to watch from the modern perspective where the idea of a rich successful doctor taking the better part of a month off to hang out and learn to dance and golf in the mountains is laughable. It’s like summer camp for grown-ups. Indeed, the resort in which the film is set and the archetypal characters that populate the film remind me so much of the same era’s slasher flicks that I half expected someone to get violently assaulted. The aesthetics are so similar, in fact, that I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the film was directed by a slasher film veteran. (Alas, it wasn’t.)

Don’t get me wrong, the film is bad. It’s just bad in a more interesting way than most other bad films. For instance, although it’s central love plot is never in much doubt, the obstacles that are thrown up between Swayze’s character and Jennifer Grey’s are a lot more interesting and serious than the contrived nonsense of something like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or The Wedding Planner.

I also find it curious that this sort of straightforward romantic movie is hardly ever seen anymore. Considering the runaway success of this film and the minor classic status it's attained over the years (and that women still make up fifty percent of the filmgoing public), it seems strange that the only place you can find romance these days is in a romantic comedy or absolute dreck like The Holiday or Something’s Gotta Give. Or it could just be that I’m watching this film from a far enough remove that I can’t quite poke as many holes in it as I might otherwise.