Strictly Ballroom
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Strictly Ballroom is a 1992 Australian romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. The film, which was Luhrmann's first, is the first in his The Red Curtain Trilogy of theatre-motif-related films; the other two are Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!.
Strictly Ballroom is based on a critically acclaimed stage play originally set up in 1984 by Luhrmann and fellow students while he was studying at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. An expanded version of the play became a success at the Czechoslovakian Youth Drama Festival in Bratislava in 1986, and in 1988 it made successful season at Sydney's Wharf Theatre, where it was seen by Australian music executive Ted Albert and his wife Antoinette. They both loved it, and when Ted Albert soon after set up the film production company M&A Productions with ex-Film Australia producer Tristram Miall, they offered Luhrman to transform his play into a film. He agreed on the condition that he would also get to direct it.
Plot
Strictly Ballroom tells the story of an Australian ballroom dancer, Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), and his struggle to establish his personal style of dance in his way to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. Scott's steps are not strictly ballroom. Scott comes from a family with a history of ballroom dancing and has been training since childhood. Scott's mother Shirley teaches ballroom dancing, and his father Doug meekly handles maintenance chores at the dance studio.
After losing a competition to a rival pair, because Scott started dancing his own steps, his dancing partner Liz Holt (Gia Carides) leaves him for the rival male, Ken Railings, after his partner Pam Short breaks both her legs in a car accident. With only weeks before the next Pan-Pacific competition, try-outs begin to find Scott a new dance partner but, unknown to his parents, Scott secretly begins rehearsing with frumpy outsider Fran (Tara Morice), a beginner dancer at his parents' studio.
Scott is initially sceptical, but when Fran introduces pasodoble steps into their routine, Scott realises her potential. He walks her home one night and finds her Spanish family living in a tiny home next to the railway tracks, where Fran's family show him the authentic Spanish pasodoble style. As their rehearsals progress, Fran grows more attractive and self-confident. Few days before the Pan-Pacifics, Fran's family decide they are ready to dance pasodoble. Scott and Fran are walking together and talking until they kiss.
When Scott returns to the dance studio, he finds Barry Fife, the conniving president of the Australian Dancing Federation who proceeds to tell him "the truth" about his parents, Doug and Shirley — they too were ballroom dancing champions, especially his father, until they lost the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix because of Doug's self-obsession and unorthodox dance steps. According to Barry losing the contest left Doug a broken man, sustained by the hope that one day his son would learn from his father's mistakes and win the Grand Prix. Scott is convinced to dance with Liz instead of Fran so he can win "for his father's sake". However, this is later revealed as a lie, part of Barry's plot to fix the competition so Scott and Liz will lose. Scott starts training with Liz, while a heart-broken Fran goes back to the beginners' class.
At the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix, Scott's friend Wayne Burns and his partner Vanessa Cronin overhear Fife talking to Ken and his partner Tina Sparkle saying that they will win no matter what. Wayne tells Les Kendall (Scott's coach, Doug and Shirley's friend and one of the judges) who then confronts Fife about it. Meanwhile, Doug finally manages to pull Scott aside and tells the real story — Doug never danced at the competition because Barry convinced Shirley the only way to win was to dance the conventional steps with Les, but Shirley and Les lost the contest anyway. After hearing his father's revelation, Scott finds Fran and asks her to dance with him. Fife tries to cut the music and stop them from dancing but Scott's sister Kylie and her partner Luke (from the children's division) interfere until Fife's loyal companion Charm Leachman cuts the music. Fife then disqualifies them, but Doug, along with Fran's family, clap out a beat which encourages Scott and Fran to "dance from the heart", drawing cheers from the crowd and tears of joy from Doug. Finally, Liz, having had a change of heart, turns on Barry and Leachman and restores the music. The couple's spirited dancing brings down the house. Doug asks Shirley to dance with him and the whole audience joins them on the stage. As the performance finishes, Scott and Fran kiss, the competition forgotten, as it was never about winning or losing.
