How She Move
How many times can you watch the same movie with different actors and a new title? If it's a dance musical and the dancing's good, the answer's obvious: As many times as they can keep cranking 'em out. No one went to see Astaire-Rogers movies for the plots, and no kid is going to go to "How She Move" for its hackneyed inspirational story line about an inner-city good girl who wants to step bad. When the cast starts clomping atop a car, their synchronized bodies joining with the booming cross-rhythms, we're sold.
A Canadian-made independent that first surfaced at last year's Sundance, "How She Move" is a grittier, slightly more real-world version of movies like "Step Up," "Stomp the Yard," and "Save the Last Dance." The lead female is black, for one thing, and the setting in Toronto's Jane-Finch Corridor is believably plagued with violence and believably inhabited by people trying to rise above it.
Raya (Rutina Wesley) had escaped the blight by attending a private school, but her late sister's drug addiction has sapped the family finances. That puts the girl back in the neighborhood, desperately cramming for an exam that would guarantee a scholarship and get her on track once more toward med school. Raya also has a gift for step-dancing and eyes the local crews with a mixture of envy, ambition, and unease.
Writer Annmarie Morais and director Ian Iqbal Rashid work enough variations on the old cliches to keep the early scenes interesting. The local bad girl, Michelle (Tré Armstrong), looks set to beat Raya down, but they end up having a furious dance-off, then become wary study partners. There's a hint of romance with Bishop (Dwain Murphy), the sweetie-pie leader of the J Street Junta dance crew, but it stays just that - a hint. Girl's gotta dance, and if it's as part of Bishop's all-male troupe, all the better.
On the other side of the aisle, there are such shopworn notions as the nerd who's secretly a great choreographer (Brennan Gademans), the disapproving mom (Melanie Nicholls-King of "The Wire") who comes around in the last reel, the rival crew led by the villainous Garvey (Clé Bennett), and the climactic "Step Monster" contest emceed by real-life notables (singer Keyshia Cole and actor/"comedian" DeRay Davis).
Oh, who cares how we got here - the competition's a gas, with the various crews dressed in street clothes or matching suits, using props or their own limber bodies, combining and recombining with percussive, mesmerizing force. The choreographer is a woman named HiHat - she's done a lot of Missy Elliot videos and the upcoming "Step Up" sequel - and it's possible she's the real star of "How She Move."
Still, Wesley has a fierce presence as Raya, trying to decide how much she owes herself and how much she owes her community. If that gives the kids in the audience something to chew on, great. The rest we've all seen before, but when the feet hit the floor, we don't begrudge seeing it again.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movies/blog.
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