So, I was going to start this review by recounting how my younger brother had the Bee Gees-heavy soundtrack album, a double CD, and I learned fairly quickly that I was not much of a disco fan. A little of that stuff goes a long way. Honestly, I didn’t know much about this movie aside from the fact that John Travolta does a lot of dancing, and he’s a great dancer. I mean, I have heard (but cannot confirm) that Quentin Tarrantino changed a minor plot element in Pulp Fiction when he realized there was no way Travolta could dance badly, hence the reason Vincent and Mia return to her home with a trophy. But aside from watching the first few minutes off my college’s own TV channel, I’ve never really seen it and didn’t know much about it.
I’ve seen it now. It was…not what I was expecting. I’m not sure it’s aged all that well.
Tony Manero (Travolta) is 19, works in a hardware store in Brooklyn, fights with his very Italian family, and spends some of his nights at the local disco where his dancing really gets him the praise and attention he doesn’t seem to get anywhere else. He has a few friends, particularly Annette (Donna Pescow), a local girl smitten with Tony, but it’s a one way sort of thing. One night, Tony spots another woman, Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), on the dance floor, and she hits him as the sort who can help him win a big dance competition. She eventually agrees, but she also seems to make it clear that their relationship is to be platonic, something Tony doesn’t seem to grasp at times.
However, this is really Tony’s only real escape. His job is going nowhere. His parents and grandmother are very judgmental, and it looks like Tony’s father Frank Sr (Val Bisoglio) lets his own miseries and disappointments rain down on the rest of the family. The only member of the family Tony seems to really like and respect is his older brother Frank Jr (Martin Shakar), off studying to become a priest to his parents’ and grantmother’s great pride. His friends are something of a collection of losers, and dancing may be Tony’s only way out of his rather crummy life. That is, if he can see a way to do so.
I don’t know what to make of this one. The dance scenes are great, but anyone who knows anything about Travolta knows he can dance. But the rest of the movie around it might best be described as a way for a young man to finally grow up and maybe become a better person. Tony’s rather apathetic way of treating, well, everybody doesn’t make him a particularly appealing character. But he’s surrounded by people like that, so it isn’t the sort of movie where a nice kid makes good in the end. Travolta is charming, and it does seem that on some level that Tony is starting to learn to be better. Late in the movie, he starts to see the world as a place where everyone takes their frustrations out on other people, and that does seem to be the world of this movie. That may just be the neighborhood Tony calls home, but it sure does seem to be the case. Tony is a kid who has, at one point, only been told twice in his entire life that he did good, and neither instance came from his family. His friends are losers, his family is unsupportive aside from his older brother, and he reflects that sort of upbringing.
Where the movie makes me stop is towards the end when sexual assault comes into play. The women on the receiving ends of these moments are, to put it mildly, very forgiving for what happened to them. I get that this is for Tony a learning moment, he clearly isn’t too happy about all this, and this is his story and not the women’s, but it still didn’t sit well with me. This is a story where Tony has to learn to maybe treat women like people and get out of Brooklyn, and at no point does the movie itself seem to suggest that what’s going on isn’t wrong, but it also does seem as if the victims are really quick to accept the offered apologies.
The point is, I don’t really know what to make of all that, so the grade is a bit hazy as a result. What’s on display is well done, but some of the things that happen in the last act would probably have been done very differently in 2022 than they were in 1977.
Grade: B
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