Nordling here.
Don't call it a remake, call it a remix.
The best remakes - and there are good ones, as fans of Cronenberg's FLY and Carpenter's THING can attest - add something new to the discussion, and brings something resonant for the new generation of filmgoers to relate to. Craig Brewer's FOOTLOOSE takes huge chunks from the original - much of the dialogue is word for word - and puts an authoritative stamp on the material, making it very much of our present and give the material something really poignant and relevant.
It's got to be very difficult to be a teenager today. Just watch the films of the 1980s in contrast. Today's teenagers seem to be handled with bubble wrap in a lot of ways in comparison to how Generation X was brought up. Those youth films featured kids actually taking risks, facing danger, and doing things that are frowned upon in today's culture, for sure. We've grown in a lot of ways as Americans - our acceptance of other races and gay culture has especially changed for the better - but we have become so overly protective of children that many of those films simply couldn't happen today. Part of this, maybe, has to do with 9/11, and part of it is the constant inundation of the news with child predators and "Think of the children" diatribes. Craig Brewer is very aware of this, and opening FOOTLOOSE with the tragedy that sets the plot in motion is just one of the many ways this film improves on the original.
Yes, this FOOTLOOSE is better than the original. It's longer, for one, and while some people may complain that it takes 2 hours and 4 to get to where the 1984 movie got to in under that, what that means for Brewer's film is that the film lets the characters breathe a bit more. These are all damaged people in their own ways, and what FOOTLOOSE succeeds at best is showing how wounded these characters are.
Ren McCormick (Kenny Wormald) comes to town three years after the tragic accident that too the lives of 5 Bomont seniors, including the son of Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid). In the aftermath of that horrible event, Moore and the Bomont City Council created harsh laws that overreact in the face of these kids' death, inclusing the banning of public dancing for childen under 18. Ren is pretty much an orphan, losing his mother to leukemia and his father an absentee, so he moves in with his uncle and aunt (Ray McKinnon and Kim Dickens). Soon his Boston upbringing clashs with the southern pace of life in small town Bomont, and he gets the attentions of rebellious preacher's daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough).
Ren decides that the law banning dancing should be abolished, with the help of Ariel, her friend Rusty (Ziah Colon) and his best friend Willard (Miles Teller). This puts him in direct conflict with the older townspeople, and Reverend Shaw Moore in particular. Shaw is a damaged man and he geuinely believes he's doing the right thing, but as Ren puts it, "This is our time," and if you've seen the original, you know what happens next.
What's great about Brewer's film - and, bold statement, but I think it's a richer, more personal, and emotional film than the original - is that there are deeper connections with all the characters than in the original film. Everyone's motivations are clear and believable. It helps that we see the fatal crash that starts all the laws coming into being and it helps that we understand just how frightened and wounded the town became as a result. The dead kids are an excuse for Bomont to create all sorts of restrictions, and while they mean well, the laws do more harm than good. It's not difficult to see the correlation between the events of the film and what happened in America post 9/11 but Brewer isn't overly obvious or in-your-face about it.
FOOTLOOSE truly comes alive in the dance scenes. They play like musical numbers, an exuberant release, and they work perfectly, including Ren's "angry dance" that is both the centerpoint here as in the original. Brewer keeps much of the original, including whole chunks of dialogue and all the setpieces, but what he adds is a real sense of tragedy and empathy that the original didn't have. This makes all the character so much richer and more resonant.
Of course, kids will defy by nature, and unlike the original, these kids don't just follow the company line. They already know how to dance, they know the score, and all they want is to "put Bomont in my rearview as fast as I can", to hear Ariel put it. There is youthful optimism and hope, and both films touch on that divide between parent and child. Brewer's FOOTLOOSE tries, more so than the original in my opinion, to truly bridge that gap.
The original FOOTLOOSE became quite an iconic film for my generation. It's not anyone's definition of a capital G Great film, but it touched something universal in every teen's life at that time. Craig Brewer's FOOTLOOSE does the same, and I could see today's teens truly embracing this film in a post 9/11, overprotective world. Yeah, I said it - Brewer's FOOTLOOSE is better than the original film - more fulfilling, satisfying, and emotional. I think it's a worthy film to see this weekend, and Craig Brewer shows his passion and his understanding of the material.
Nordling, out.
