Flashdance

An obvious crowd-pleaser, Flashdance follows Jennifer Beals’ Alex Owens, who works as both a welder and an exotic dancer, as she embarks on a relationship with a much older man (Michael Nouri’s Nick) and attempts to gain admittance into a prestigious ballet school. Filmmaker Adrian Lyne does an effective job of immediately establishing the picture’s Pittsburgh-set environment and raft of relatively well-developed characters, with, in terms of the latter, Beals’ tremendously appealing turn as the scrappy protagonist certainly playing an instrumental role in confirming Flashdance’s mild success. This is despite a cookie-cutter narrative that boasts virtually nothing in terms of unexpected developments, and yet it’s hard to deny that the movie does become more and more absorbing as time progresses – which ultimately does pave the way for a climax that’s far more involving and compelling than one might’ve anticipated (ie it becomes impossible not to root for Alex’s success). The end result is a feel-good drama that generally fares better than much of its similarly-themed ilk, with Beals’ star-making turn going a long way towards smoothing over the endeavor’s few missteps.

*** out of ****