Film Review: 'Feel the Beat'

For April Dibrinia (Sofia Carson), dance has always been her passion and her dream was to make it to the Broadway stage. But after a disastrous audition tarnishes her budding career and she gets evicted from her apartment, April needs a change of scenery. So she returns to her small hometown of New Hope, Wisconsin to lay low for a while. But soon after arriving, April is roped into helping her old dance teacher Miss Barb (Donna Lynne Champlin) train the local children's dance team for an upcoming competition.

While reluctant, April agrees out of a hope that it could salvage her career, though her harsh teaching demeanor quickly puts her at odds with her young pupils. Adding to the awkwardness is the fact that one of her students is Sarah (Eva Hauge)--the younger sister of April's high school boyfriend Nick (Wolfgang Novogratz), who April abruptly dumped when she left for New York. Getting her pupils ready for competition will be an immense challenge for April--but along the way, she just might learn some things about herself.

If you're a regular watcher of Hallmark dramedies or similar inspirational movies, you've likely seen just about every plot beat in Netflix's Feel the Beat already. There's the small-town girl with big-city dreams, the plucky competition underdogs, the reunion with a high school sweetheart, and many more. On paper, having this many well-worn tropes in the same movie would be a recipe for disaster. But with a cast that puts their hearts into the familiar material and a compellingly sweet story, Feel the Beat emerges from its Cliche Storm script as a fluffy but watchable flick in a similar vein to last year's The Perfect Date.

Starting with Feel the Beat's biggest positive, Sofia Carson makes for a fantastic lead. In addition to having all the dance skills needed to sell April Dibrina as a talented dancer, Carson's performance keeps April likable and sympathetic all throughout her Defrosting Ice Queen arc. Even in her nastier moments with the New Hope dance team, you're still able to feel at least a nugget of sympathy for April. Between April's opening fall from grace as a result of slighting a very hateful and petty Broadway manager and her backstory, her overly harsh and pessimistic attitude becomes understandable.

It helps that it doesn't take long for April to begin her transformative character arc, with Carson excelling as April becomes a stern but supportive coach for her New Hope girls. Carson forms strong chemistry with all the child actors surrounding her, though her best work is with Eva Hauge as April and Sarah's bond becomes a focal point of the film. The dance performances of the children also match Carson's, with their climactic "Teacher Feature" standing out as the most beautiful dance scene of the movie. Overall, though, Carson plays well with all her co-stars, so even when her character goes through all the expected beats, she still brings an undeniable charm to April.

(SPOILER ALERT The only time Carson can't sell April is during the requisite Third Act Falling-Out moment. While it's believable that April's self-centeredness would crop back up at the opportunity to headline a Broadway show, the idea that she would repeat her past mistake of leaving Nick and Sarah without even saying goodbye is harder to swallow. The fact that this conflict gets resolved so quickly, with April being easily forgiven by everyone, adds another face-palm-inducing fold to this development. Spoilers Over)

Before the contrived conflict mentioned in the Spoiler section, Feel the Beat takes something of a "Whack-a-Mole Conflicts" approach to plot structure. Small obstacles crop up for April and the New Hope team as they advance through the competition, only to be resolved just as fast as they're introduced. Even April's initial icy demeanor towards the kids gets tamed rather quickly. While this might make for a bland story on its own, the cast is what makes Feel the Beat appealing. In addition to Carson, the child actors are all naturally adorable and charming in their own ways. Highlights from the bunch include Justin Allan as infectious ball of energy Dicky and Lidya Jewett as Kari (the latter shining in the emotional scene Kari shares with her mother). And as previously alluded to, Eva Hauge makes a nice splash in her first feature-length film, throwing herself into Sarah's many emotional moments that flesh out both her character and Sarah's relationship with April. While she has some strained moments, her stellar moments greatly outweigh them and Sarah and April's relationship adds a sprinkle of originality to Feel the Beat.

On the adult half of the cast, we have Donna Lynne Champlin as New Hope coach Barb. Her overly chipper/oblivious personality could've easily become annoying, and the fact that she says nothing to April about her initial callousness towards her students might not win her any fans either. But as the story goes on, Barb goes from wacky neurotic to warm-hearted mentor and shoulder of support, with Champlin bringing the necessary maternal warmth to her character. Brandon Kyle Goodman is clearly having a ball as April's NYC friend Deco, as is Dennis Andres as Dicky's similarly adorable father Buzz (a fun comedic bit has Buzz and the other New Hope dads get into a face-off with the fathers of their snobby competitors). Enrico Colantoni also appears as April's father Frank, and does what he can with his limited screentime to inject some personality into his routine "Supportive Dad" character.

Other cast members that get the short straw in terms of characters are Marissa Jaret Winokur (a talented Broadway legend wasted in a thanklessly brief cameo) and Wolfgang Novogratz as April's ex-boyfriend Nick. Like Buzz and Frank, Nick has his adorable moments, and Novogratz has all the charisma to align with Carson as the story develops April and Nick's relationship. But in his first scenes, Novogratz makes a bad first impression by playing Nick as overly smug and condescending towards April. But after that rocky introduction, Novogratz brings that aforementioned charisma to Nick and follows Colantoni's lead in bringing depth to an otherwise extremely familiar character type.

While The Perfect Date might've had a unique gimmick to offset its predictable rom-com narrative, Feel the Beat is far more noticeably cliche. But like its predecessor, Feel the Beat's cast help bring out the story's heart, allowing the story to cultivate a sense of emotional resonance that will have you caring for the characters and wanting to see them reach their happy ending. Sofia Carson proves to be a capable actor and dancer, with her and the rest of the film's dancers making the dance sequences fun to watch. With COVID-19 and other circumstances continuing to make for a troubling reality, harmlessly predictable and fluffy movies like Feel the Beat certainly have a purpose now more than ever before. So if you're in the mood for some good dance-themed escapism, give this movie a try.

Score: 5.5 out of 10 tape faces.