This film about a young woman from Pitttsburgh aspiring to get into a professional dance school whilst working as a welder during the day and an exotic dancer at night is truly flawless. Jenifer Beals bagged the lead role as Alex and stars alongside Michael Nouri who plays Nick, Alex’s boyfriend and boss.
This film is most known because of its dance sequences including the scene with Beals having water poured over her whilst she sits poised on a chair. It is also a well known fact that the budget for many 80’s films wasn’t the largest and in the very last dance sequence that we see in this film a male break-dancer was used instead of Beal for certain moves, the poor editing skills make it highly obvious which parts are not Beal but also add some hilarity to a scene that is most definitely not intended as being comical.
Out of all of the 80’s films featured around dance Flashdance most definitely tops them all for me. Not only are the dances incredible, but it features an independent woman working hard by herself for herself. Alex achieves her dreams of auditioning for the dance school on her own without help or input from anyone around her. Yes her boyfriend and friends believed in her and kept her spirit but it was down to Alex herself achieving exactly what she was after.
Flashdance wasn’t one of the first 80’s films that I’ve seen, in fact I only watched it for the first time a few months ago. But I do wish that I had discovered and watched it much sooner.
Here’s a link to the IMDB page – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085549/
Films of the 80's 