Stars: Julia Stiles, Sean Patrick Thomas, Kerry Washington, Terry Kinney, Bianca Lawson, Vince Green, Fredro Starr

Director: Thomas Carter

Summary: Sara Johnson is forced to move to Chicago following the death of her mother. There she finds life very different to the one she left behind in the quiet Midwestern town. Things look up for Sarah when she meets Derek, who shares her passion for dancing.

With her dreams of becoming a professional ballerina decimated by the accidental death of her mother, Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles) is forced to move from her quiet Midwestern town to her father's ghetto apartment on the south side of Chicago. The stark urban environment's contrast of race and class compound Sara's loss and her misplaced guilt, which are both exacerbated by the fact that her mother had been en route to her dance performance at the time of her death. But when she meets Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), a popular black student with a passion for hip hop and a future brighter than his troubled past, her repressed ambition and sorrow are released through a revitalized interest in the cathartic and expressive power of dance. Their friendship and mutual interest in dancing inexorably lead to a passionate romance that raises the sadly typical, bigoted resistance from Sara's white father and Derek's black friends. Widely hailed by critics for being as sophisticated and intelligent as it is viscerally passionate, SAVE THE LAST DANCE enjoyed the top of the American box office in its first weekend in release, playing to sold out shows across the country, a landslide affirmation that Sara and Derek are not as alone as they think.

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Save the Last Danceenjoyed a profitable release in early 2001, with box-office earnings that exceeded anyone's expectations. Its performance illustrates the staying power of a formulaic film that avoids the pitfalls and clichés that would otherwise render it forgettable. Since there's nothing new here, you'll appreciate the original quirks in a character-based plot that's just around the corner from Flashdance, and just as familiar. Sara (Julia Stiles) gave up a promising ballet career when her mother was killed while rushing to attend her daughter's crucial audition to Juilliard; Sara blames herself for the accident, and at her new, mostly African-American high school in Chicago, she's uncertain of her future.

Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas) has no such doubts; his own future is bright, and his attraction to Sara is immediate; they connect (predictably), and Sara's dormant funk emerges, with Derek's coaching, as she learns hip-hop dancing in a local club. Obligatory subplots are equally routine: Derek's sister (Kerry Washington) is a single mom struggling with her child's absentee father; Derek's best friend (Fredro Starr) feels trapped in his gangster lifestyle; and Sara's once-estranged father (Terry Kinney) is doing his best to correct past mistakes. Within the confines of this standard follow-your-dream drama, director Thomas Carter capitalises on a script that allows these characters to be real, intelligent, and thoughtful about their lives and their futures. It's obvious that Stiles's dancing was intercut with that of a professional double, but that illusion hardly matters when the rest of the film's so earnestly positive and genuine. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Commentary With Director Thomas Carter, Deleted Scenes, Making Of Featurette, Interviews, Music Video, Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	2001
Release Date:	November 5, 2001
Runtime:	108 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P H E 8101
Keywords:	Last, General, Dance, Wide, Screen, Save, Romantic, Drama
Genre:	Drama