Film Review: Work It

A film Missy Elliot would be proud to share a title with.

Source: Screen Rant

When it comes to the ‘teen comedy’ on Netflix, they might as well change their name to Daniel, because they’ve been delivering absolute donuts the last few months. But Work It is as refreshing as your first drink outside the house after six months inside.

The construct is nothing new: a bunch of 20 somethings playing high-schoolers, college applications and a love story, in-fact, it blatantly borrows scenes and storylines from its predecessors Bring It On, To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Kissing Booth 2, but unlike the latter two, it works and the one-liners are well played.

Source: Screen Rant

Quinn (played by Sabrina Carpenter, the hot sister in Tall Girl), is a clumsy 'nerd' desperate to get into Duke College because her dad went there. When I say clumsy nerd, I mean her hair is died mousy brown and her clothes are horrendously offensive in a bid to disguise the fact she’s actual unbelievably gorgeous.

She does all the right things to get into Duke- AP classes, plays the Cello, volunteers at a nursing home, which is straight outta the To all the boys... playbook. But in an acceptance interview, the Admissions Officer (played by Michelle Buteau), is like, ‘You are so boring and unexceptional,’ which leads her to tell a bit fat white lie, that she’s part of the school dance team who have appeared on Ellen, so that’s a big deal. Side note: I wonder how Ellen treated the dance team? Michelle is like ‘Yasss QUINN, I’ll see you at the big dance competition ‘Work It’ and after that, we’ll probably accept you'.

Michelle Buteau is the sweet and sour sauce to the 20 pack of nuggets that is this movie, a small but vital role. She always had these supporting roles, you’d also know her as the host of The Circle, but she’s lol-worthy and shines.

Learning how to dance montage. Source Movie Nation.

After this little lie, so many convenient things just happen...the dance team actually has auditions in two weeks, so she enlists her best friend Jas (Lisa Kochy, who has 235 gazillion Youtube followers) to teach her how to dance in two weeks. She goes to the audition and she’s still embarrassingly clumsy. It was hard to watch. Obviously, the dance captain, played by 28-year-old Keiynan Lonsdale is like, ‘Absolutely not.’

What to do, what to do? Not a quitter, Quinn starts her own dance team full of misfits who are already mad dancers, which is kind of why it works. Because it’s not an unbelievable storyline, where people go from no dancing skills to audition for So You Think You Can Dance in three months. Except for Quinn, her skill development is unlikely.

Cauuuuute. Source: Vanity Fair

She enlists a sick choreographer, Jake (played by Jordan Fisher, also known as John Ambrose from To all the boys...) and cue love interest. They're super cute, but their rel isn’t the main event and doesn’t detract from the dance team. It’s like butter on your toast. It doesn’t detract, rather it only serves to enhance the main event, Vegemite.

Mad Dancers Source: Roger Ebert

It all reaches a climax on the day of the big dance competition, where they dance-off against the OG school dance team, and their dance team of misfits. And look, I don’t think it’s overly predictable, remember in Bring It On they came second, so you never know.

While it’s a dance movie, it’s not back to back, seemingly pointless scenes for the sake of dance scenes in a dance movie. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a little more range of styles and choreography, but I’ve watched a lot of Dance Moms and so I have quite a trained eye.

This movie goes down like a good rosé, can you tell how hungry and thirsty I am writing this review? It’s really enjoyable to watch and the soundtrack is baaanging. While Netflix has set a really low bar this year for the ‘high school comedy’ Work It Grand Jetes high above it.