New Fame Not Worth the Callback
Fame is about four years in the life of New York City High School of Performing Arts. It chronicles the transition of a handful of students studying in a variety of mediums (including music composition, dance, acting and singing) from wide-eyed Freshmen to eager Seniors ready to take on the world. It follows their ups and downs, their teachers doing all they can to get them ready for the harsh reality a working artistic professional faces upon graduation.
Dancers take the stage in MGM's Fame
This is exactly the same template director Alan Parker’s (Evita, Mississippi Burning) 1980 original also followed, and it is that very structure that is the number one problem keeping this modern day remake from success. By covering so many students and teachers, by trying to incorporate their stories over a full four year timeframe, new screenwriter Allison Burnett (Untraceable) falls into the same trap creator Christopher Gore did 29 years ago. By crafting such a broad canvas characters just never connect like they should, and while a few individual stories come ever-so close to popping off the screen there’s never enough time given to any of them for anyone to make any more than a minimal impression.
On the upside, this new Fame is about 30 full minutes shorter than the original and it is far more hopeful in tone. It zips by amazingly quickly, music video and commercial director Kevin Tancharoen applying a huge helping of kitschy gloss largely absent from Parker’s film. It revels in its clichés and doesn’t care if the audience notices, the whole thing a beautifully photographed blur that’s not altogether too much of a chore to sit through. It’s candy-colored pop entertainment made for teen and tween audiences with the attention span of a gnat, and as long as person takes it on that level (and that level alone) there is the distinct possibility that might in fact find something here and there to enjoy
But that’s really about as far as my goodwill can go. Did I care whether or not Denise (Naturi Naughton, easily the standout newcomer) would break out of her parent’s dogmatic dreams for her success and craft a music career of her own not so classical in bearing? Was it at all important for me to feel like wannabe rapper/actor Malik (Collins Pennie) get in touch with his pain so he could be a more honest performer? Did my heart long for Marco (Asher Book) and Jenny (Kay Panabaker) to get over their differences of opinion on their future artistic prospects and resume their teenage love affair?
The answer to all those question and more was a resounding no. I simply didn’t care if dancer Alice (Kherington Payne) got a principal role with a world renowned touring company or if Joy (Anna Maria Perez de Tagle) chose working on “Sesame Street” over graduating from High School. I had no interest in whether or not Neil (Paul Iacono) managed to get funding to shoot his short film or if ballet student Kevin (Paul McGill) headed back to Iowa in relative disgrace. Nothing resonated, nothing at all, each character just a thinly constructed snapshot of a human being never given enough focus or attention to allowing for growth.
Still, there are some outstanding individual scenes, mostly involving one of the teachers (played by a stellar group of character actors including Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Mullally, Kelsey Grammer, Charles S. Dutton and, of course, Debbie Allen), There’s a nice (if highly improbable) bit in a karaoke bar that’s a definite standout, while one scene duplicated from the original with a student getting the cold hard facts from his dance instructor packs nearly the same punch as it did the first time around.
I like the fact that Tancharoen and Burnett try to paint a happy face on a youngster’s pursuit of stardom. While Parker and Gore’s depressingly honest coda is for more true to life, considering just how silly and inane much of this new version is going out on such a downbeat note wouldn’t have been close to fun. But I still think Fame leaves a lot to be desired, and while I appreciated its brevity and its eagerness to entertain I just didn’t know enough about the students it was profiling to find the movie – or the concept – worthy of a callback.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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