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Asher Book, Naturi Naughton and Collins Pennié in Fame |
Fame games from the kids with X factor
FAME
Directed by Kevin Tancharoen
Certificate PG
SADLY, leg-warmers do not play a leading role, but still, this film will appeal to the 30-somethings for whom the Fame theme tune still makes them get up and dance, and for a new generation who were not born when the original Alan Parker film came out in 1980 but have been brought up on a diet of TV talent shows and dance-offs.
I have to confess I hated Fame when it was on the telly. It was an irritating craze that grabbed all the girls in my class. They suddenly wanted to wear legwarmers and speak like they do in New York – not a good sound coming from the mouths of eight-year-olds in Highgate Newtown.
But if I leave my baggage at the door of the cinema, this film is clearly a winner. If you like X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, and general showbiz schmaltz, you’ll love this.
We all know the story. A group of kids win entrance to a prestigious New York performing arts school and we follow their triumphs, tribulations and trysts.
We learn that there are just 200 spaces for 10,000 applicants and it seems therefore slightly strange that the 200 chosen ones are not a little more precocious, considering they have out-auditioned hordes of talented hopefuls.
To give the players something to do instead of just being simply fabulous all the time, every lead character seems to be haunted by inner demons, which of course is necessary to enable the plot to provide them with something they have to overcome. Yet paradoxically, all also seem beautifully self-centred and sure of themselves.
We are given the usual array of easy-to-label types: Jenny, the meek mouse of an actress, who studies seriously and wants to deflect the attention of the class hunk as it may get in the way of her lessons, but of course has her heart melted.
Then there is Denise (Naturi Naughton), the immensely talented piano player whose dad wants her to stick to Beethoven, while she has a burgeoning interest in (whisper it) pop music. And so it goes on. The student whose mum thinks he’ll never succeed and should simply go and get a technical qualification, the ghetto youth who wants to be an actor but saw his little sister gunned down and has inner demons to conquer.
The setpiece music numbers and dance routines should sell this film, but are not consistently great, although a jam session in the common room with some simply breathtaking tap dancing stands out. We get lots of shots of dramatic piano playing, an array of close-ups of beads gently, seductively, making their way down temples, and it’s not that inspiring.
This is as cheesy as the residue at the bottom of a fondue tub – of course it is, it’s Fame, circa 2009, and fans would be disappointed if it was anything else.
As a critic once said of The Beatles’ earliest efforts, no matter how basic they are, “...you’d have to be a real sour square not to love them”. In a way, it applies to Fame, too: the individual characters might deserve a thorough Cowelling, but it is just about possible to ignore such things and click your fingers to the funkier bits. |
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Your comments:
The Little Theatre is a cinema in Bath - I used to work there so it was just funny seeing is recreated with great accuracy for the film. I'm not sure why they chose to use it though, perhaps one of the film makers has connections to Bath.
K. Steed
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