HIGH STRUNG
Director : Michael DamianCast : Keenan Kampa, Nicholas Galitzine, Jane Seymour, Sonoya Mizuno, Richard Southgate, Anabel Kutay, Paul Freeman, Marcus Mitchell
Genre : Dance/Music/Romance
Run Time : 97 mins
Opens : 14 April 2016
Rating : PG
Dextrous fingers and fleet feet work in
concert to create something magical in this dance movie. Ruby (Kampa) is a
dancer who has received a scholarship to study at the prestigious Manhattan
Conservatory of the Arts. She befriends her outgoing roommate Jazzy (Mizuno)
and runs afoul of the catty April (Kutay). One day, Ruby comes across a hip hop
violinist busking in the subway station. This is Johnnie (Galitzine), a
brooding young man from England in search of a Green Card since his Visa has
expired and there’s nothing for him back home. Johnnie draws the ire of Kyle
(Southgate), a classical violinist and Ruby’s schoolmate at the conservatory. Ruby
proposes that she and Johnnie jointly enter the Peterson Strings and Dance
competition, in collaboration with a hip-hop dance crew headed by Johnnie’s
downstairs neighbour Hayward (Mitchell). However, this burgeoning relationship
begins to distract Ruby, with her teachers including contemporary dance
instructor Oksana (Seymour) and respected ballet teacher Kamrovsky (Freeman)
pushing her to up her game.
High Strung is directed by Michael
Damian, who co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Janeen. The couple have
created an incredibly cheesy affair packed with very familiar story beats. It’s
the streets vs. the conservatory, the cool kids vs. the snobs, and the
realisation that the two worlds need not be discrete. The production values
definitely possess a satisfactory degree of polish, and one would be
hard-pressed to tell that the film was also shot in Bucharest, Romania in
addition to on location in New York. The camerawork and music production is
slick and Dave Scott’s dance choreography is dynamic if not spectacularly
inventive. However, it’s hard to shake that “student film” feeling, primarily
owing to the predictability of the plot and the clunkiness of the dialogue.
While most of the cast are talented dancers, it looks like acting comes second
(or, for some of them, third).
When
we first see Johnnie he’s shirtless, tattoos and abs on display, sitting on the
edge of his bed playing the violin as sunlight streams in through the window.
“The music is always there, burning inside me,” he says dreamily in voiceover.
“I don’t know where it comes from. I only know that if it stays trapped, I will
be consumed.” This is a character that seems like the result of a group of
14-year-old-girls holding hands around a pentagram drawn on the floor,
summoning some improbable dreamboat who is tormented, but sexily tormented. Galitzine has wannabe-James Dean written all over
him, but it’s easy to see why the ladies will swoon. He does look great playing
the violin though, and does an excellent job of approximating some complex
finger placement – though those in the know will be able to spot a few spots
where the finger placements don’t match up to the notes being played.
Kampa
is a professional dancer who was the first American to join Russia’s Mariinsky
Ballet in 2012. After several injuries and feeling overworked, Kampa moved back
to the U.S. The film is it its best when it simply allows the dancers to dance
and does not demand that they act. Therefore, the plot proceeds on autopilot,
hitting dance sequences that are as varied in styles and settings as possible. Ruby
is very much a tabula rasa character
for young female viewers to project themselves upon. As the requisite best
friend, Mizuno’s Jazzy has few defining qualities, other than she likes to
party. Southgate’s Kyle is intended as a foil and romantic rival for Johnnie, but
he stays in the middle of the dial, failing to make the audience feel
conflicted about whether they want Ruby to end up with Johnnie or with him. Freeman
and Seymour, somewhat recognisable names (he was the villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark and she was the
Bond girl in Live and Let Die) are on
hand to lend authority, but they mainly stand by the piano and shout orders to
the class.
High Strung is as paint by numbers as
they come, but then again, people don’t go to dance movies for the plot.
Director Damian is well aware of this and delivers several lengthy
dance/musical sequences, the most memorable being an Irish jig and a duelling
violins set piece. Instead of moving the formulaic plot along though, it feels
like the story is put on hold for these scenes to dutifully unfold. The film’s
corniness and stubborn refusal to rework the shopworn tropes that it piles on
thick are the equivalent of tying a ballerina’s legs together with violin
strings.
Summary: Laughable dialogue and
stiff acting detract from the strikingly performed dance and music numbers in
this generic dance movie.
RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars
Jedd Jong
