There had been plenty of dance movies from Hollywood, from the tap and ballroom (films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) to ballet ("Turning Point" and "Black Swan") to jazz ("A Chorus Line" and "All That Jazz" ) to contemporary ("Flashdance" and "Breakin'". The most recent examples would be the five "Step Up" films which spanned from 2006 to 2014. For Filipino films, I remember only "Dance O Rama" (1963) and the various macho dancer films by Lino Brocka and Mel Chionglo in the 1980s. I could not think of another recent Filipino film that focused on dance aside from this new one called "Indak."
Jen (Nadine Lustre) was an island lass from Bantayan in Cebu province. She loved to dance, however, because of a childhood trauma, she shied away from public performance. Because of her viral dance video, Vin (Sam Concepcion), the leader of a group of dancers called Indak Pilipinas, personally went to Bantayan to invite Jen to join them on their bid to join and win the World Dance Competition in Seoul, Korea. For Jen, this was the most major decision she had to make in her whole young life -- to leave her mother (Yayo Aguila) behind and to find courage to dance on stage again.
No offense to Ms. Lustre, but I cannot get myself to root for her character Jen, or to even like her the way she was written. She was such a major drama queen of the most entitled, inconsiderate, selfish and toxic kind, and the script did not find it necessary for her to explain her questionable actions, so what we see stands as is. I actually found myself agreeing with the supposed antagonist Steph (Nicole Ormillo) -- Jen was really trouble for the Indak team.
On the day of the flight to Seoul, did she really have to sit around in her bedroom so long thinking of who knows what, giving everyone stress at the airport by not showing up and making Vin wait up for her, only to finally show up after the plane had already departed? Despite of their limited funds, Vin and Jen actually had to rebook a new flight to Seoul because of Jen's irresponsible stunt.
On the day of the competition proper, did she really have to isolate herself in one dark room by herself, again thinking of who knows what, away from her other teammates who did not even know where she was, only to join them when they were already called onstage? Jen knew pretty well that she had critical role in their group dance formations. Was she actually going to let her team dance with a gaping hole where she was supposed to be?
In one scene, Jen picked up Vin's phone and saw in one of the photos that Vin had not told her about one truly devastating event in his life. Despite her invasion of his privacy, Jen had the temerity to be the one to feel hurt for not being told, and even just walked out to leave Vin there on the table in tears. This inexplicable diva drama of Jen was intolerable after everything Vin did for her -- bringing her into the group despite their misgivings, letting her stay in his pad with free room and board, practically babysitting her all the way.
In the first place, her so-called childhood traumatic experience was shown to be very minor one only. I am sure all of us had lived through and moved on from even more embarrassing public moments than hers. The script really should have beefed up this trauma and made it more convincing to be of such life-changing impact to cripple her whole perspective of life. Also, the script did not make it clear where Jen got the funding to buy her sexy dance wardrobe, which looked a lot more expensive than anyone else's in the Indak group.
The musical soundtrack was excellent with a number of exciting upbeat dance tunes and some beautiful slow dance songs for change of pace. But to be totally honest, despite the music video directorial skills of Paul Alexei Basinillo, the dance scenes did not really wow me that much. Neither the Indak rehearsals nor the foreign team finalists were impressive. Concepcion and Lustre should not have dared to dance solos with the Korean street break-dancers, as this only showed off their limitations in moves. Thankfully, the actual competition number of Indak had significant screen impact, or else this film would be a total loss. 4/10.
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