Review of Fame (2009) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

The choreography is quite good, stylish - it was fun watching rooms full of people dancing away to sings and I admit I may have participated with the singing as well at times!. There is a plot, rather than it just costantly going from song to song, those are the main plus points. There are undoubtedly a number of cliches present, men 'admiring' female dancers for their suggestive moves and vice versa, etc. it doesn't exactly greatly break new ground but its alright as a film following a group of singers/performers trying to improve their craft and be taken seriously, professionally.

The vocals and dancing are the main appeals and their not bad, so I'd say its alright but its hardly a particularly good film as far as it having a clear plot direction as such. There are a lot of characters and it doesn't really center on any one person for the duration, so it feels like as a viewer we only see, or know, snippets about peoples personal lives, their background etc., which is a shame. It felt at times that there was a sort of forced melodrama present which didn't sit with me too well, almost as if its trying a bit too hard to be hard hitting but it doesn't quite succeed. Some of the cast (the young, teenage students) clearly aren't exactly top grade actors, sadly - not all but some scenes I felt could (perhaps should) have been cut.

I also felt, more specifically, that Kelsey Grammar was trying a bit too hard to be seen as the strict, perfectionist teacher unhappy with anything but the best from his students. It felt, to me, insincere, although im not arguing that he can't act as obviously he's a famous actor from other films and the TV series Frasier etc.

I suppose its mainly a musical/music based film and as that its alright (with the caveat of some scenes being slightly better than others), so it could be worse but as a film I'd say its not particularly good either. As the film continues, I felt it, if anything, seemed obviously desperate to try to stand out and I lost some of the enthusiasm I'd initially felt for it. If it concentrated purely on the musical numbers and all but cut the rest of the plot out, or certainly lowered the number of characters at play, it would've come across better/slicker. It just didn't really work for me, although I can't deny that the initial dance scenes and some of the singing/musical numbers are fairly decent.