Dancing in September chronicles a year in the life of a TV writer (Nicole Ari Parker) as her show debuts with great success and later becomes another victim of demographics. The film is ambitious in making a statement about the struggle for African Americans to not only gain a place in the entertainment industry, but to be able to produce quality shows without network tampering.
Nicole Ari Parker gives a great performance (as always) as her character starts off being a creative young woman with strong convictions, then loses sight of her work as she gains money and status, and is later mournful about compromising her show because of network demands. The role could have been very cliche, but Parker pulls it off perfectly and authentically - you can see her character gain confidence and become a little arrogant through success, but it is never exaggerated. All the actors in this movie, even the ones with only a brief amount of screentime, give strong performances.
There are some clever bits, like when the writer coins a catchphrase, "You gotta keep it real!" for the sitcom, which becomes ultra popular. But as the show gets altered, the writer herself struggles to "keep it real" and that catchphrase begins to lose its cache. There's also one scene in which the young lead actor of the sitcom complains about people expecting him to be Will Smith. Meanwhile, the man who plays his father in that sitcom is James Avery, who also played the father figure of Will Smith in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
My one major complaint is that there are way too many different elements crammed into this one movie. There's the modern romance between the two leads, the dark comedy about the TV network, some gritty violence concerning a boy from the streets, and a strange documentary-style commentary interspersed throughout. I assume the director did this to explore all aspects of the characters involved, but it ends up being kind of messy, like it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. The best way I can describe it (and I'm sure there are better examples out there) is "Hav Plenty" meets "The Player" meets "Menace II Society". Still, "Dancing in September" is a good achievement and because of its unconventional style and criticism of Hollywood, I can only assume that it must have been hard to get greenlighted. Oh yeah, there's some nice camerawork in it as well.
Nicole Ari Parker gives a great performance (as always) as her character starts off being a creative young woman with strong convictions, then loses sight of her work as she gains money and status, and is later mournful about compromising her show because of network demands. The role could have been very cliche, but Parker pulls it off perfectly and authentically - you can see her character gain confidence and become a little arrogant through success, but it is never exaggerated. All the actors in this movie, even the ones with only a brief amount of screentime, give strong performances.
There are some clever bits, like when the writer coins a catchphrase, "You gotta keep it real!" for the sitcom, which becomes ultra popular. But as the show gets altered, the writer herself struggles to "keep it real" and that catchphrase begins to lose its cache. There's also one scene in which the young lead actor of the sitcom complains about people expecting him to be Will Smith. Meanwhile, the man who plays his father in that sitcom is James Avery, who also played the father figure of Will Smith in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
My one major complaint is that there are way too many different elements crammed into this one movie. There's the modern romance between the two leads, the dark comedy about the TV network, some gritty violence concerning a boy from the streets, and a strange documentary-style commentary interspersed throughout. I assume the director did this to explore all aspects of the characters involved, but it ends up being kind of messy, like it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. The best way I can describe it (and I'm sure there are better examples out there) is "Hav Plenty" meets "The Player" meets "Menace II Society". Still, "Dancing in September" is a good achievement and because of its unconventional style and criticism of Hollywood, I can only assume that it must have been hard to get greenlighted. Oh yeah, there's some nice camerawork in it as well.