Dirty Dancing – Remake

If you are on social media, especially Twitter, then I’m sure you heard lots of opinions on the made for tv remake of the iconic movie Dirty Dancing. And if you saw the remake yourself you probably have some strong opinions. I was really looking forward to watching this because I’ve loved Dirty Dancing since I was a kid. Even when I was really young and I didn’t really understand the whole movie, I still loved all the dancing and I could tell it was a love story.

Looking back on it, Dirty Dancing has had an effect on my life in more ways than one. It helped foster my love for dance. I’ve never taken ballroom dancing lessons, but I did dance from elementary school until I graduated high school. (Sidenote: I’m taking an adult ballet class this summer and I’m super excited about it! I’ll write about it this summer). I wanted to dance just like these professionals. I remember once my friend and I were at my aunt’s house and we went upstairs to the guest bedroom and were watching the movie. We decided to try doing the lifts and of course, my friend dropped me. My aunt asked us what we were doing (since she probably heard the loud thump) and we were like “….nothing…”. Another example of how it has touched my life is that it effected my choice of prom dress! Fitting to mention this because I just chaperoned my school’s prom last night (will be writing about that this weekend). The dress I wore to my senior prom was a light pink with some sparkle and it had a strappy back with ties. I seriously bought this dress because it reminded me of Penny’s dress at the beginning of the movie when Baby first sees Johnny & Penny perform.

So to say I had high expectations for this movie is an understatement. I really wanted to like this movie, but it just…wasn’t that good. I won’t say I hated it because I don’t think it was the fault of any of the actors. I mean, I’m a fan of Abigail Breslin and I know she’s a good actress, but this whole role and movie was not her best. I think it just all felt too forced and not genuine. It didn’t feel like a remake – it felt like a weird copy if that makes sense. They did make some changes that I didn’t think were needed or necessary – it just dragged the movie out (to a full 3 hours!). For example, they developed the characters of the parents more but did I really need a whole storyline about their marital problems? No, not really.

Everything felt unnatural and forced so it just made the whole movie weird. The dancing wasn’t too great either. Like at all. Baby’s dancing didn’t seem to get any better and they gave her very basic choreography so it lacked the wow factor. Like I said, I didn’t hate it, but it left a lot to be desired.

Additionally, it was a sort of musical but not really? They sang some songs but not all so it just turned out weird. Either embrace it as a musical or don’t but to do it halfway just makes it messy and confusing in my opinion.
A highlight of the movie was Sarah Hyland’s performance at the talent show. It was a nice song with her new friend, black worker Marco – yeah they had to throw in a storyline about race also.

The worst part of it all? *Spoiler Alert* The weird ending! So they added a different ending to this remake. Instead of it ending with them in love and dancing at the end of summer show, it fast forwards to the 70s and Baby is in the audience of a Broadway show called “Dirty Dancing”. She apparently wrote a book and it became a Broadway show and Johnny choreographed it. Oh yeah, and they’re not together anymore – she’s married to someone else and has a daughter. Wtf? Why would I want to watch a movie about two people falling in love through dance in the Catskills in the 60s and then they don’t even end up together?! Seriously, worst ending ever.

As a final note – one of my favorite parts of the original movie is when “Hungry Eyes” plays and you get the whole montage of Baby getting lessons, learning how to dance, and actually becoming a legit dancer. This whole scene in the remake didn’t measure up at all.

For your viewing pleasure – here is the original “Hungry Eyes” section

Overall, I didn’t hate the remake but I think it fell short and unfortunately if you’re going to do a remake of a famous film it better be up to par or else people will rip it apart. I saw one person on social media do a play on the famous line “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” and said “Someone needs to be put this whole movie in the corner”.

I feel bad for the actors and people involved with the film, because I’m sure they were bombarded with all the negative press and public opinions on social media. I appreciate all their hard work into making this movie, but it just didn’t quite cut it. In the end it just seemed over rehearsed which made it seem like they were all going through the motions but passion and feeling were lacking which is essential in any movie but especially when you’re trying to remake Dirty Dancing! 

Did you see the movie? What did you think?