I saw this film about 6 weeks ago, and I am still unsure of what I thought about it. It was predictable what would happen in the end (either that or I am very perceptive!), but yet I still found it enjoyable, almost touching (ALMOST...).
Basically, this girl, a ballet dancer (who is very good), is auditioning for a dancing school (Julliard School I believe...), and she asks her mother to be at this performance, because she is very special to her.

However, sadly, her mother is killed in a tragic road accident on the way to this audition (old story... is late, rushing, car pulls out, etc). So this girl (who fails her audition because she didn't have the confidence without her mother there) has to move from her town that she has grown up in, to the ghetto.

Needless to say, this is a big change. It appears she is one of the few white girls in the entire school, and because of this, she gets a lot of looks. And because she hasn't adapted to the vastly different culture of that particular area, she stands out rather a lot.

However, she does make a friend, a girl who introduces herself by warning her about how esy it is for things to get stolen in this particular school (kids are scanned with metal detectors and their bags are searched every morning!).

So a friend is found. As is an enemy. She is caught out in class by a popular boy, Derek Reynolds. She immediately takes a dislike to him, but as I'm sure we had already guessed, this will change later...

So, she is invited to a club by her friend (who coincedentally is the sister of the enemy), and because she is not used to the culture, she turns up.. not very dressed for the occasion (see the film). But this gets remedied and she goes to the club...

Meanwhile, we learn about Derek. He it friends with this hardened criminal type who went to prison the for a while after he and Derek pulled off a robbery. We also learn that Derek would have been caught too
, if it weren't for this criminal guy who averted the police's attention, and got himself arrested. So, Derek feels he owes his friend. His friend soon calls up the favour, asking him to be a driver for him one night, going for a job in a particularly dangerous area of the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, he and the main girl in question are getting quite friendly. So this brings in another complication: does he stay with her and make their relationship work despite the views of everyone else (including his sister), or does he go and do the job with his friend and risk getting killed/arrested? Getting arrested would certainly mean he would never get into the university he has applied for, and would mean he would lose what could turn out to be the love of his life...

So anyway, I don't want to spoil it. I won't give away what happens, if you hadn't already guessed. Just time for a short opinion on the film in general.

It had gentle humour and some parts I found quite funny (when the girl is being taught about hop to dance/walk/sit hip-hop style for example). The film was well put together and the story was fairly good. The soundtrack, although not the kind of music I usually listen to, was excellent and suited the film very well. I was defeinitely pleased I had seen it, and didn't believe my money had been wasted. I was only slightly disappointed there was less ghetto action in it, but hey, it's a romantic comedy, what did I expect? ;)
I would reccomend it to someone who wants to go and watch a film that doesn't require a lot of thinking but does want a good time out of it!

-k