Make It Happen

Plot

Small-town Indiana girl, Lauryn Kirk, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, dreams of making it to the prestigious Chicago School of Music and Dance some day.

“I can’t work in a garage all my life. You know I’ve trained to be a dancer.”

For Lauryn, who helps run the family business at a garage handed down by her father with her brother Joel (John Reardon), dreaming may still be easy when it comes to routines and account keeping. Then, as she chases her dream down a 6-hour drive up to Chicago, Lauryn soon finds out just how difficult it really is to attain her childhood dream.

Development and Acting

From the get-go, Make It Happen follows a simple plot.

Girl wants to be a dancer, thinks she has the talent, gets rejected by the dance school and ends up staying on in the city to work and waiting for a big break. The rest? We’ll just hint that it’s all fairly predictable.

Dance, struggle, self-discovery, romance and heart-warming turn points, what have we not seen before already? Of course, this story happens to revolve around the setting of a burlesque dance club and its stunning revolving stage, but still, the Coyote Ugly-esque idea isn’t too original.

Surprising to know, was that Make It Happen was co-written by Duane Adler who also wrote the Step Up series. Where has the flair gone?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s performance as a dancer was charming and the saving grace of the cliché plot. While Winstead’s modest and determined dance character shines sincerely onscreen, it doesn’t look like the character is trying very hard between the first and the last audition.

Dance and performance-wise, there was just no defining moment in her dance development, with the exception that Lauryn actually discovers her “sexy” along the way.  In all, the dancing falls shy of the Step Up mark, although acting-wise, Winstead manages to pull through.

Riley Smith plays Russ, a club DJ chasing his dream of making an album cut some day. His lacklustre performance as Lauryn’s love interest was a result of poor direction. Putting the two together, there just wasn’t any spark there.

Instead, John Reardon’s performance as Joel, the quiet, unpretentious brother and garage mechanic definitely leaves the impression that his onscreen chemistry with Winstead would probably have played out to a better effect.

Verdict:

For a dance movie, Make It Happen didn’t surprise and its lack of a truly high-octane performance was disappointing. But yes, there are new moves, aesthetic scenes of street dancing in Chicago, and probably a first in how modern hip-hop and sensuous burlesque dance elements are actually woven together here.

Fantastic? Well, we’ve definitely seen better coming from the popular American television reality dance series, So You Think You Can Dance.

UrbanWire gives Make It Happen 2 out of 5 stars

Movie details

Opens: Sept 4
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama/Dance
Running Time: 90 mins
Language: English
Director: Darren Grant
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Riley Smith, John Reardon