Billed by the makers as 'an improvisational film', Dancing at the Blue Iguana was created after four months of intensive acting workshops. It's very much an experiment for director Michael Radford whose previous films include Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) and Il Postino (1995). Unfortunately, it's an experiment gone wrong.
The film follows the lives of five women who are dancers at the LA Strip Joint 'The Blue Iguana'. Seen by many as nothing more than objects of desire, it examines their hopes and dreams away from the glare of spectators. Angel (Daryl Hannah) dreams of becoming a foster mother whilst Jennifer (Sandra Oh) harbours a secret love of poetry. Throughout the space of a week, their dreams come true or get cruelly shattered. No matter what happens, ''The Blue Iguana' seems to be the only constant in their lives.
Done well, improvisation allows a feature film to exhibit a strong realism in both plot and character. One only has to look at the films of Mike Leigh, to see how such techniques can work wonderfully. But one gets the impression that Leigh is very selective about what he will let his cast get away with. In Dancing at the Blue Iguana Radford appears to have indulged his cast too much. As much as the film tries to vaunt its realism, as soon as we get into a sub-plot about a Russian hitman falling in love with Angel whilst planning a hit, we realise we're in cliché land. Similarly, when one of the characters turns out to be pregnant or another turns out to be a heroin addict, it's difficult to care: we've been there and done that before. It's not that it's bad to so something again: but make sure you're interesting whilst doing it. Radford also has a tendency to linger on female flesh for too long. Obviously in a film about stripping, you'd expect some nudity, but one wonders what Radford is trying to achieve. Is he making a comment on voyeurism? If so, it passed by me.
However, there are good performances. Daryl Hannah is a revelation as the consistently bewildered Angel. Completely naïve, her lack of self-awareness is both comical and tragic. It's a credit to Hannah that she gives the character a sweetness that endears her to the audience. Oh does well as the poetry lover who must reconcile her two different lives. It's only Tilly who lets down the side with an overbearing performance that grates every time she is on screen.
Dancing at the Blue Iguana is a film that wants to say so much, but in actual fact has nothing to say at all. Plots remain under developed, characters neglected (it's scandalous that Elias Koteas gets around only 5 minutes of screen time) and, all in all, there is a general lack of coherence to the proceedings, leaving the audience little to care about.
Reviewed by Laurence Boyce
Reader comments about Dancing at the Blue Iguana
Marc (Email address withheld) writes:
There is a reason why Roeper & Ebert gave this movie 2 thumbs up. The characters are absolutely real. I was especially impressed by Daryl Hannah's soulful and charismatic performance. This movie goes far beyond the strippers, and captures real people with real lives, and real problems. This movie was far more entertaining than what I expected.
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