by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
I’d seen previews of How She Move before I walked into the theatre and my expectations were low. The previews mostly featured the actions, the step dancing. Not that step dancing isn’t incredible, but since the previews mostly featured the physical, I mistakenly thought that it might not have much more to offer.
There are the things audiences have come to expect from a movie about step—the culture of the streets, competition and the drive of one of the characters to make more of themselves through step. What started as underground dance in the black community has become fodder for movies, almost a genre of its own.
Maybe I would have felt more confident about the film had I seen its pedigree beforehand, which includes a stint at Sundance, complete with a nomination grand jury and audience award prizes at last year’s Festival. It was then snatched up by Paramount, who gave the director the extra money to film the rip-roaring dance finale. Originally, they filmed the movie in just 25 days.
How She Move doesn’t merely pay lip service to a new (but potentially hollow) sub genre. The actors are good and gritty enough that the emotional manipulation of the movie feels right and real. They also convey the joy of movement and the emotional release of dance.
Director Ian Iqbal Rashid paints a picture of the Caribbean neighborhood culture in the Jane-Finch Corridor of Toronto that’s very specific, contributing to the realism. Choosing a specific neighborhood, with its own quirks and specific accents makes the story authentic instead of broad. Set details also helped establish the world of the film. It isn’t enough that we see people being arrested in main character Raya’s neighborhood, or that there are row upon row of depressingly similar project apartments, we also see wallpaper that isn’t quite aligned and school desks that are twenty years old.
These details resonate and become more poignant when a missing piece of flooring in the kitchen symbolizes all that their lives are missing.
It’s what isn’t there that makes this movie most interesting. Raya (Rutina Wesley) is forced to come from private school when her sister dies of a drug overdose, draining the last of her parent’s money in drug treatment and funeral expenses. Her missing sister is the ghost that haunts the film, the missing person whose presence lingers in things unspoken.
Raya comes back from school, an outsider in her own neighborhood, someone who’s trying to leave. Because she’s no longer at the prestigious private school, her only hope to get into a top college is the scholarship exam, which will pay for her schooling.
Fear of Raya’s failure is reflected every moment actress Melanie Nicholla-King is onscreen as Faye Green, Raya’s mother. All hope is pinned on Raya.
Raya is so nervous that she blows the test. Desperate for a way to raise money for school before her mother finds out about her failure, she joins a step team and goes after the 50 grand in the Detroit step competition.
Every actor in this movie does their job and does it well. They are mostly unknowns, but they fill each moment exquisitely with purpose and motivation. I felt Raya’s judgment as she looks at the squalid life she seeks to leave, I understood her guilt at leaving her friends behind and her ruthless determination to do it anyway. A lesser actress couldn’t have helped me to understand it so fully.
Step might be the catalyst in Raya’s life, but the story isn’t about step. It’s about the choices that we make, and who gets left behind when we make them. It’s about looking for a better life in ourselves and others. Calling it a coming-of-age story just seems too simplistic. Although one of Raya’s choices is a turning point, the ending of the movie doesn’t feel definitive. It ends on a good note, but you know that her life will continue to have paths she can choose or not choose. If you’re making a choice to see a new movie this weekend, make it this one.
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