Born To Dance

This review may contain spoilers!

It seems quite appropriate that my 200th review is of a film from my own country of New Zealand. I would give Born To Dance a 6/10.

I think with a film such as this it's best to start with the obvious; the dancing was absolutely perfect in this film, some really incredible choreography. The score and soundtrack just went hand in hand with this completely; every note went with ever dance and every movement with every song. The editing was another quality I really enjoyed, a dance film should have motion in how it presents this and the cutting presented this effect. I also have to commend a few of the themes in this film; there are some very clear ideas around drugs, pursuing your goals, social class and sexuality.

John Tui, who played Zack, felt like a stiff performance at first; until you realised he was playing a father that struggled to connect with his son which was all the better for when they connected at the very end of the film. Kelvin Taylor, who played Kane, was a great antagonist; I loved how he seemed to connect with the protagonist before ruthlessly betraying him. Tia Maipi, who played Tu, was a good protagonist; you were really convinced by how much he wanted his goal for the sake of his future. Stan Walker, who played Benjy, was a really versatile performance; his abilities as a performer were well utilised but I liked that he played a role with negative traits really well too.

However the best performance came from Kherington Payne, who played Sasha. Payne played a role who was very grounded, her emotional responses were very sincere and she could switch to being more comedic quite well. More than this I think it's great that she had such strong chemistry with Maipi; you liked their relationship and felt for them as they had moments of connection with one another. Payne really brought a performance that showed her character in the spotlight the best possible way.

While the themes circling this film were good there was no depth to this plot; in fact it was very predictable and quite basic to follow. Ultimately while this was good film in terms of New Zealand cinema from an international perspective this type of film has been seen and done the same way a thousand times before. The pacing was really bad and things either fast tracked or dragged on in the wrong places. The dialogue was constructed in a way that just felt fake or forced; how any of the characters were supposed to have chemistry with those lines is beyond me. The cinematography was dull and didn't move as well as the editing that complimented it.

Alexandra Carson, who played Sophie, gave a truly awful performance; it felt like she was reading lines for her scenes. Michael Metuakore, who played Tino, gave a very generic homosexual performance; there were tropes in his performance that just need to be escaped because it creates quite a negative and singular role.