REVIEW: ‘Fame’

In the first half-hour of the 2009 version of “Fame,” Charles S. Dutton instructs one of his drama students that it’s not enough to say the lines in a piece – you have to make an emotional connection with the audience. Too bad the movie doesn’t follow the same advice.

“Fame” Rated PG • 115 minutes Starring Naturi Naughton, Kay Panabaker, Collins Pennie, Paul McGill, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, Charles S. Dutton Directed by: Kevin Tancharoen Written By: Allison Burnett RCC Rating: Worth watching on DVD

“Fame” isn’t a remake or a reboot, as much as “The Next Generation.” The movie follows another group of students of New York City’s Performing Arts School through their four years at the magnet. They’re told, upfront, by the school’s prinicpal (played by Debbie Allen, the lead from 1980′s “Fame”) that they’ll cram in a full day’s worth of academics as well as their rehearsals and artistic training. (Of course, we never see them in an academic classroom, so that part’s still a mystery.)

We’re introduced in short order to the dancers, actors, singers and musicians that make up the class. Here’s where the first demerit kicks in: with a cast this large, there’s absolutely no time to get to know any of the kids as anything past their stereotype. There’s the sullen actor who has a hidden pain that keeps him from emotionally connecting with an audience; the girl who’s been training as a classical pianist since she was a baby, but can’t branch out because her father sees anything else as a frivolity; the small-town dancer who is good enough to be there, but not great enough to excel.

The performances are crisp, and the actors are all quite good. Kay Panabaker, Paul McGill, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle and Naturi Naughton all shine, and each deserves a long, rich career. The movie could have focused on any of them, and been a better film from it. However, none of them are given the opportunity to do anything other than briefly sparkle in scenes. It’s a quick punch of plot development, then on to the next. You barely see their growth as artists, and when it’s all over with you have no connection with any of their characters.

“Fame” also suffers under the mantle of being a PG movie. The original, which was R-rated, dared to actually show some of the darker aspects of being an artist, with drug abuse, pregnancy, and suicide. In the struggle to make the film more family-friendly, the 2009 model slides further into a homogeneous gloss.

I saw more heart and real “artistry” from the Booker T. Washington routine staged at the Dallas Museum of Art to promote the movie, than in the movie they were promoting. In knowing that the students had 17 days to choreograph the routine in secret, seeing what they accomplished is genuinely moving. It’s everything the movie isn’t.

All told, “Fame” is a nice, warm movie that has good singing and dancing, but it will not follow its tenet of “living forever.” It’s all tip, and no iceberg.