Director: Laura Terruso
Written by: Alison Peck
Casts: Sabrina Carpenter (Quinn Ackerman), Jordan Fisher (Jake Taylor), Keiynan Lonsdale (Julliard a.k.a Isaiah), Liza Koshy (Jasmine Hale a.k.a Jas), Drew Ray Tanner (Charlie)
Most of us can’t forget the days ‘High School Musical’ hit the screens. While the old has its charm, the brand new dance element isn’t that bad! ‘Work It’ is a Netflix Original film revolving around a girl named Quinn Ackerman who learns how to dance. Mainstream, right? However, the plot has much more to offer.
The screenplay at the onset shows Quinn ruining the lights for ‘Thunderbirds’, a group of dazzling dancers at Woodbright High School. Julliard, the captain of the Thunderbirds humiliates her and fires her from the job. The very next day, Quinn is seen at her dream college, Duke University for an admission interview. Quinn plays the cello to seniors at an assisted old age home or heads the student government so she can get into Duke University but has no extra-curricular. In order to lay a nice impression, she adds to the hints thrown at her by the interviewer and blurts out that she dances for Thunderbirds. The interviewer gets excited and tells her that she is looking forward to seeing her perform at the “Work It” dance competition.
Here comes her friend Jasmine in the plot who is a phenomenal dancer dreaming to attend the New York Dance Academy. Although she dances for Thunderbirds, she has always heads on with Julliard. Jas takes up the Herculean task of making Quinn prepare for the dance audition of the Thunderbirds. Quinn struggles on the stage but ends up getting (saged xD) humiliated. She convinces Jas to leave the Thunderbirds and form a new dance team with her.
Subsequently, Jas lets her heart rule her head and they both form a team called TBD (To Be Determined) for the competition. A team requires members and there the girls are on a treasure hunt. They find noobs who never got a chance to spread their wings. The Thunderbirds have been three-time champions of the ‘Work It’ dance competition. Fighting them is the main objective of this team. To have an edge, Quinn digs the location of a phenomenal dancer who gave up competing at ‘Work It’ because of a knee injury. Please welcome the very charming Jake Taylor. “Great things come with terms and conditions”, they say. Jake here comes with the condition that TBD needs to clear the qualifiers on their own and after that only, he’ll choreograph them.
A cog in the wheel which makes TBD, whose future needs to be determined is worth watching! Jake gets on board and starts tightening the reigns of TBD.
The movie has this casual yet subtle “heads over heels” blooming between Jake and Quinn. On the other hand, one can find Jas getting turned on by a mattress seller named Charlie. The scene where she visualizes Charlie coming towards her while TBD is having a meeting is hilarious!
“You don’t have to be in control all the time. You’re not studying for a midterm, all right? You can’t think your way through this. Quinn, you gotta…let your body drive you,” Jake tells her in a speech before they dance all romantically. ‘Work It’ consists of a bunch of memorable dialogues.
While we all think that now everything will come up roses, the interviewer of Duke loses her job making Quinn lose the very single cause of learning how to dance. Quinn’s mom makes her realize that she needs to focus on her studies rather than dancing and goes back on her words quitting TBD. Likewise, she breaks her relationship with Jake. Here the vibe gets bleak given the void in Quinn’s life.
Very soon, Quinn dances with her heart in the library and decides to square accounts with Jake, TBD, and above all, with Jas.
Will Quinn and Jake get back? How will TBD fight the Thunderbirds at ‘Work It’? Will Quinn get back to her only best friend? Above all, does Quinn make it to Duke University?
Stream the movie ‘Work It’ on Netflix to find the answers to all these questions.
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