Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2001) Starring: Charlotte Ayanna, Daryl Hannah Genre: Drama MPAA Rating: R Director: Michael Radford Screenplay: Michael Radford & David Linter Runtime: 123 minutes Official Web site: http://www.iguana-movie.com/

PLOT:
An unglamorous peek into the lives of five dancers who work at one Valley strip club. We see the lives of these dancers in and out of the strip club in which they work, along with some of their co-workers and customers. Sometimes, this movie has a somewhat documentary look and feel to it. With the popularity of reality TV, that's probably a conscious choice by the director.

The first dancer we meet is Jessie, played by Charlotte Ayanna (Jawbreaker), who is the new underaged girl that auditions at the Iguana. Of course, Eddie the manager, played by Robert Wisdom (Face/Off) knows she's got no ID but lets her work anyway because... well, because she's hot.

Angel, played by Daryl Hannah (Wall Street) plays the dumb blond dancer who wants a baby, even if she has to be a foster mother by asking her rocker customer/boyfriend to pretend to be her fiancé. In one scene, she wants a baby so bad, she tries to convince herself and others that a pregnancy test she found on the floor in the bathroom is hers.

Jo, played by Jennifer Tilly (Liar Liar), is the angry, metal music, drug dealing, dominatrix, promiscuous dancer that will fight customers on stage without worrying about getting fired. In a strange real life twist, David Amos (who is now in jail for the "Big Mac" murder) plays a bouncer who gets her off the stage. In what I think is the best scene in the movie, Jo's dominatrix session at home is interrupted by a drunk Jessie who wants to join in on the "fun" by saying "I wanna play!", to which Jo replies, "This is not a place for kids."

Jasmine is played by Sandra Oh (Princess Diaries), who secretly writes poetry and attends poetry readings in her spare time. She meets a poetry guy but is unable to maintain her new relationship when he asks her to go to San Francisco with her but her boss won't let her take the time off.

Stormy, played by Sheila Kelly (Nurse Betty), is the somewhat mysterious and quiet dancer with a dark past that comes to visit her. She keeps out of the drama at work and minds her own business. She meets her brother played by Elias Koteas, in an almost cameo role. The only reason why I bring this up is because he played the DJ in another wonderful strip club movie called Exotica.

The movie has just about everything that can happen and topics of strippers, from fights in the dressing room over customers and seats, buying a guitar for their rocker boyfriends, drugs, stealing boyfriends, strange customers, prostitution, pregnancy, all the way to dealing with people knowing you're a dancer. The only thing missing was my favorite topic of bisexual and lesbian dancers.

The outside of the club used in the movie is the Valley Ball but the interior is a set, but the setup looks a lot like the Valley Ball, with the bar in the same position. Although it's not made clear, Eddie, the manager, tells Jessie that they have been having vice and ABC problems, indicating that this is a topless (with alcohol) club. However, all the dancers dance topless right at the edge of the stage, and the feature even goes nude, which would be illegal. There are some other indicators (like very high mileage laps) that would indicate that this is a nude club. I have to assume the makers of the film wanted to keep this vague to allow the actresses to not have to dance nude. In the credits, they thank people from Crazy Girls, Cheetah's, Spice Lady (now Leggs) and Bare Elegance which might mean that they wanted to kind of mix both types of clubs. Although this could be considered inaccurate, it does not take away from the movie.

There is a minor subplot about a hit-man who becomes infatuated with Angel and eventually gives her a lot of his presumably, hit man money of about $30K. Other than the fact that sometimes dancers have weird customers that come in and dump a lot of money on them for no apparent reason, this did not add to the story at all. In fact, I think the scenes showing what the hit man was doing could have been taken out without affecting the movie and pacing the movie better. The movie ends with the managers reading about the hit in the newspaper, which didn't seem to add anything to the movie either. It would have been more interesting if a strip club owner got murdered or a club got torched.

Also, I wish there was more of Stormy in this movie. I think trying to show 5 dancers may have been too many. Stormy's character seems to be one of the most interesting but the least shown and explored. I felt the baby-wanting Angel was the weakest character and could have been replaced by more scenes of Stormy.

All in all, every dancer (including Nico, the feature) is shown as being dysfunctional and is running from something or somebody. Perhaps this is a pretty bleak view of dancers but those are the stories that they chose to tell. Each one, even the lessor explored ones, rings true at some level. It would have been nice to also show a couple of married dancers with kids who were happy but that wouldn't really fit the atmosphere built by this movie.

MUSIC:
The most interesting stage sequence is with Jasmine, which also happens to have the most integrated music to the scene. Jasime breaks up with her brand new boyfriend by dancing to Porcelain by Moby and crying on stage while the lyrics say "this is goodbye." Although her dancing abilities are somewhat limited, her acting performance here was genuine and worth the wait.

Otherwise, although there are a lot of music in this movie, other than some Leonard Cohen, I didn't recognize any songs off the top of my head.

DANCE SEQUENCES:
There are so many dance sequences, I almost lost track. There are no less than 14 dance sequences in this movie, but many are short and are not big production numbers like that of Flashdance or Striptease. That's not a bad thing. I liked the fact that the dancing was treated more like just part of the scenery instead of being paid too much attention.

Basically, each of the 5 main dancers have at least one, if not several on-stage topless scenes. Only Nico, the porno feature, goes nude. Even with her, don't be looking for any bush or pink. There is also one other dancer who shows up on stage that does not show up in the rest of the movie. Between the 5 main characters, Stormy and Jessie dances the best, even though they don't do a lot of polework Stormy does some great floor work and Jessie does some great stage interaction with customers.

SUMMARY:
As an attempt at a "slice of stripper life" movie, I think it succeeds and worth the price of admission. If you like realistic gritty movies like I do, you'll enjoy this one. Many people who have no idea what goes on in the dressing rooms will probably find this movie fascinating, if not a little harsh. It's certainly not a promotional PR tool for the industry, and if anything, will probably keep women from being dancers. Some dancers may find the negative images objectionable but I did not see anything that I have not seen in real life. None of the characters goes through change in the few days but such is real life. See it with a dancer friend, but be ready for them to be depressed after the movie.

Gritty and realistic.