The Wasted Potential of a Remake

A couple years ago, the 30th anniversary of Dirty Dancing was celebrated – by re-releasing the film in cinemas and also by doing a remake. This remake essentially followed the plot of the original film: While holidaying with her parents at a placid resort, Frances is smitten with the resort's rebellious dance instructor. Her father opposes their relationship which creates a rift between him and her. However, this was expanded into a three-hour movie event and the production added musical numbers.

Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze starred in the original as Frances “Baby” and Johnny, but the remake re-cast these roles with Abigail Breslin and Colt Prattes respectively. Prattes lacked the natural charisma Swayze brought to the character and often came across as wooden in his line delivery. Breslin was a good casting - where she lacked in dancing, she made up for in acting - and it was refreshing to see a plus-size leading lady without her weight being written in as a plot point. However, the costume department truly did Breslin a disservice by the costumes they gave her, none of which complimented her figure or character

To be frank, I did not like this film – due to the pacing, the writing and unfortunately the chemistry between the new Baby and Johnny. However, I did like how this film attempted to flesh out more of the supporting characters, specifically with Baby’s sister Lisa (played by Sarah Hyland) and her character arc and later romance with J. Quinton Johnson’s Marco. It was a refreshing and mature take on a character who was initially written to be the dim-witted sister and that romantic subplot was far more believable.

Where I believe this film went wrong was trying to recapture the magic of the original, while also trying to give answers to questions no one had. One of the great things about films, is when those credits roll; you can imagine whatever you want happened to those characters. There is that freedom to allow the audience to imagine “what if” - which is typically how we got into the fanfiction writing craze, but everyone’s version of a story’s conclusion is different - which is great.

However, this film allows the audience to have no such conclusion. They went with an ending very similar to David Chazelle’s La La Land (2017), but a massive difference between both productions is Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s characters are still a bit of a mystery. They found their own respective happy endings, but it leaves the audience wondering what happened after that final look between them.

The real contrast between both of these films lies within the writing. Eleanor Bergstein’s original screenplay had more showing and not telling, whereas Jessica Sharzer’s script fell heavily on exposition dialogue throughout the film.

A prime example of this is when you look at the conflict between Baby and her father when he finds out she lied to him. In Bergstein’s script, he berates her once and refuses to speak to her for the rest of the holiday until a tearful Baby calls him out on his hypocrisy and reminds him she’s no longer a child. This is subtle, but we see the rift between a once close father and daughter getting harder to bridge as the film progresses.

In Sharzer’s version, there are so many scenes where we are reminded of how disappointed her father is in her, to the point where becomes exasperating. Having your characters re-alliterate verbally their conflict over and over again becomes quite frustrating to sit through. This was actually an issue throughout all of her script, characters telling us how they feel rather than showing it.

Honestly it wasted screen time and I did nothing further to anyone’s storyline. This became even more apparent with the conflict between the parents – Debra Messings and Bruce Greenwood’s plot line had so much potential, because the lack of physical or emotional intimacy in a difficult marriage portrayed on screen could have been poignant. But the dialogue was so on the nose and forced, I found myself not having sympathy for either party.

This film definitely didn’t need the runtime it got, especially when it seemed all of the storylines weren’t really given the nuanced they deserved. Plus the musical numbers, questionable at best and cringeworthy at worst. Also. the dancing itself was too "dirty" - the choreography by Tony Winner Andy Blankenbuehler was more sexualised than its predecessor and lacked the intimate chemistry choreographed specifically by Kenny Ortega,

Sarah Hyland, J. Quinton Johnson and Nicole Scherzinger were undoubtedly the best musical talent and this went for their acting as well.

I believe this film really missed the opportunity to give Dirty Dancing the tribute it deserved. Personally, I would have wanted to go down a sequel route. Maybe Baby and Johnny had a daughter, who Baby takes to the resort from her adolescence in the wake of Johnny’s passing and our new protagonists find herself repeating history with a bad boy love interest.

Already, I feel like this would have had more of an emotional investment from the fans Jennifer Gray is still able to reprise the role, But this also could’ve been a moment to pay tribute to Patrick Swayze and the character he was most known for.

In this case, a new story would have landed much better than a reimagining of a film that was quite precious to many people during that time. Sadly, it’s no surprise that the film receives highly negative reviews and was not as popular as they perceived.

If you’re going to write a reimagining of a classic, maybe just take a breath and consider does this film NEED a reinterpretation Or is there enough to continue the story with a new cast of characters?