Reviewed by Jo Wood
Stars Ben Miller, Kerry Armstrong, Nadine Garner, Denise Roberts,
Jane Hall, Tara Morice, Toni Lamond, Barry Crocker,
Noeline Brown, Scott Irwin, Roy Billing, Susie Lindeman
Written by Robin Ince & Carolyn Wilson
Certification UK PG | Australia PG
Runtime 95 minutes
Directed by Darren Ashton
It's a real grower, this movie. For the first 15 minutes I was overcoming not just the documentary-esque real-time jerky camera work, but the fact I had originally miss-read lead Ben Miller's name as Ben Stiller and was half expecting an American rom com... But overcome it I did, and fell helplessly in love with this low-bugdet Australian mockumentary about children's dance schools in the land down under which follows the black-sheep of the dance schools, run by adorably English Mr Jonathan (Miller). It subtly takes the piss out of the tradition of young girls dressing too old for their own good, wearing more make-up than most ladies-of-the-night, and having expectations forced upon them that they're never going to live up to, resonating the American obsession with beauty pageants.
Mr Jonathan is keen that in learning about dance, his young protégés, the Jazzketeers, also learn about current affairs, politics, cruelty to animals, the plight of repressed women in Afghanistan... you get the picture. As such, their dances are all delightfully eccentric and colourful - a slap in the face to current dance school champions, a group run by Miss Elizabeth (Hall) who promotes a more traditional dance style, winning them award after coveted award. Justine (Armstrong) is cast wonderfully as the cringiest of pushy mothers to long suffering and permanently upstaged daughter Tenille, while short, plump, shell-suit wearing Jazzketeer administrator Barbara (Roberts), who has a passion for fostering potential dancing stars, appears to save the day in recruiting her 'nephew' to the group. Mr Jonathan's heart meanwhile, threatens to be stolen by heavily pregnant single mum Paulette (Garner), who's daughter Grace threatens steal the limelight from the other girls...
The film is dotted with 'interviews' where Miss Elizabeth never misses an opportunity to bring up the fact Mr Jonathan never won awards as a dancer himself, and is therefore unable to offer the girls the best instruction. Her approach is hard-hitting, anorexia-encouraging, and, quite frankly, frightening. Full of The Office-style cringy moments, classic Aussie brashness, and pure English eccentricity, this film will become cult viewing, if only it can find an audience willing to sit through a film about dance, even though it offers much, much more.