Movie of the Day

[connielane]

The Cutting Edge

First off, this is not the greatest movie ever. It's horribly unoriginal and cliché. But goshdarnit, I *love* it. Partly because, like many girls I know, I have had a long-standing fascination with the world of figure skating. But mostly because there are some great elements to the film that really make it work and keep it entertaining.


There are two major formulaic plot points - 1)bickering turns to love (*happy sigh*), and 2)headstrong and incompatible athletes train and train and train for a major competition (in this movie, it just happens to be the Olympics). So you know two big answers from the get-go. Yes, they're going to win the gold, and yes, they're going to fall in love. But, as with most of the hackneyed stories that we love in spite of ourselves, it's the journey that matters.

The main thing that makes the movie work is the presence of its stars, Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney. They have a really enjoyable chemistry, and they're really fun to watch. They also do some of their own skating in the film. I'm not sure how much was done with doubles, but those skating shots are cut together really well, so that there's never a sense of "well, that's obviously not the actors." You really believe (or I did, anyway) that it's all being done by the stars.

My roommates and I used to watch this movie all the time and quote the lines again and again. It's just such a fun bit of fluff, and I love it. Makes me want to go to a rink and smell the ice.