A story of city rebelliousness mixed in with small town strictness greets us today. The fictional town of Bomont, where dancing and rock and roll have been banned, lends this musical drama a healthy dose of conflict when the new kid moves in from Chicago, Illinois, shaking up the local community and high school. We review the Herbert Ross directed, Dean Pitchford written movie Footloose (1984).
Ren McCormack moved to Bomont with this mother, Ethel, to live in the home of Ren’s aunt and uncle. The urbane attitude of Ren included driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, espousing support of the Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death and enjoying music banned by the community. The stark contrast to the buttoned up, small town mixture of factory workers and farming families was clear from the start. Frances Lee McCain and Kevin Bacon portrayed Ethel and Ren, respectively.
The cultural shock that Ren and his mother, together, begins to come into focus from the first session of Sunday mass at the local church. The McCormack’s meet Reverend Shaw Moore, his wife, Vi, and the couple’s daughter, Ariel. Portrayed by John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Lori Singer, respectively, the Moore family comes from the exchange seeing expressions of the outside world that reinforce the three distinct points-of-view for the family members. Ariel Moore, reckless in behavior as a response to her father’s religion-based strictness, sees a romantic opportunity fueled in part by the relationship with her father and in part by legitimate intrigue at the new influence.
Ren McCormack develops romantic feelings for Ariel Moore while making friends with Williard Hewitt as portrayed by Chris Penn. Hewitt, with his own romantic feelings for Ariel’s friend Rusty as portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker, comes to Ren’s emotional and physical defense when Ariel’s pre-existing boyfriend, Chuck Cranston as portrayed by Jim Youngs, looks to stir up trouble for Ren for taking an interest in Ariel that is reciprocated. The tension of the conflicting romantic feelings among McCormack, Moore and Cranston fuels additional tension baked into what will become Ren’s desire to express his will for himself and for his high school friends looking to have a dance.
Beyond the dramatics of romantic relationship conflict, community conflict over reading choices, the direction of the young aiming to choose their own reading and musical tastes, and the tension between the parents and children of the Bomont community, the use of the dance argument in highlighting familial differences through a high level exploration of world views over biblical views, religion and dance was done in an interesting statement of time and attitude for the era this movie occurred in. The personal journeys of Ren, Ethel, Ariel and Shaw are particularly meaningful for this movie. That the Kenny Loggins song Footloose scored that theme made for a winning choice for the movie and the movie’s soundtrack.
I grant the movie Footloose as directed and written by Herbert Ross 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Matt Lynn Digital 