Dance for Grace: Not so graceful
If only good intentions meant or equaled good cinema, the newly released, A Dance for Grace would be a film worthy of being celebrated as a great effort co-directed and starring a ‘Jamerican’ – Orville Matherson. The sad truth is that while the film boasts a substantially decent storyline, the execution is plodding, amateurishly filmed, and acted to wooden perfection by its lead principals, Matherson and Nancy Pelligrini.
A Dance for Grace tells the tale of Ricky (Matherson), a convicted drug offender of Caribbean roots living in Atlanta, Georgia who is given an unusual parole agreement by a judge — utilising Ricky’s community college arts background, he is assigned as a dance instructor at a high school in a small, deep rural town.
The freshly christened dance teacher’s relocation and seemingly plum perks, seriously irk a corrupt cop (Douglas Sines) with who the convict shares a past, while a bail officer (Pelligrini) is tasked with keeping watch over Ricky.
Upon arrival in the town, where as only in the movies — everyone and everything in Smalltown USA is happy-go-lucky, Ricky quickly learns one of the townsfolk, Grace requires an urgent, life-saving operation. He decides to skip the Salsa routine the class was entering for a competition and enroll them in a $100,000 dance contest instead, with the proceeds going directly to aid the ill woman who the town has rallied behind; thus, the film’s title.
Essentially, the movie is modelled on a familiar celluloid template — city outsider goes to small town/learns life lessons in the process/teaches small townsfolk lessons too. Think To Sir With Love, Sister Act etc.
What initially works in the movie’s favour (and should be welcome for Jamaican cinemagoers) are its plot points of Ricky being of Jamaican descent combined with his exposure and tutelage of dancehall music and culture to his American teenage charges.
To its credit, the film steers clear of highlighting the masochistic, hyper-sexualized imagery and lyrically violent gratuitousness that defines contemporary dancehall. Instead, it focuses, and rightly so, on the infectiousness of the music’s rhythms and the vibrancy of its dance.
Where Dance for Grace badly stumbles is in its overall direction and the mediocre acting talent. As for the feel of the movie itself, it is choppily edited and shot with uncomplimentary camerawork that at several key moments forsake wide shots to capture dance sequences. At times, the movie’s scenes also alter vicariously between being poorly lit and having poor sound; however, it should be noted that the scenes filmed in Jamaica (which account for 20 minutes) play well and are beautifully photographed, though the product placement of local enterprises has the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Ultimately, the film is an embodiment of a solid idea not given its due. In more capable hands, A Dance for Grace could definitely have been more graceful.