Netflix’s Newest French Film “Let’s Dance” Will Remind You of the “Step Up” Movies

Uni France

Recently released French Netflix film “Let’s Dance,” produced by Uni France, explores the relationship of aspiring dancers to seemingly contrasting dance forms: hip-hop and ballet. Reminding American audiences of the early 2000’s “Step Up” movies, this French counterpart does not play on dance clichés but does fall into a few Parisian ones.

The film focuses on hip-hop dancers Joseph (played by Rayane Bensetti) and Karim (played by Mehdi Kerkouche) who come to Paris from a provincial town to compete in a dance competition. After Joseph’s girlfriend dumps him, the two young men are left with nowhere to go except to the home of Remi, a man Joseph knows.

Joseph decides to mount his own dance crew for the competition. While he struggles to become a choreographer, Remi enlists him as a teacher at the ballet school to teach the students about loose form and street-style dancing. It is in that period Joseph meets Chloe (played by Alexia Giordano,) an aspiring ballerina fixed on traditional dance forms.

Instead of focusing on a typical enemies-because-we’re-competitors behavior, “Let’s Dance” emphasizes the actual art forms and human feelings. We see each of the characters going through personal challenges and revealing three-dimensional human characteristics. All this set against the beautiful Parisian landscape and you’ve got yourself the perfect evening show.

During one particular moment, Joseph takes a run on the Île aux Cygnes, lives in a perfectly-French apartment, and even goes to the Palais Garnier to watch ballet with Chloe and her grandmother. These are elements a Francophile dreams of, and put together in one film, “Let’s Dance” is the romantic movie with real millennial characters living in the middle of Paris  — minus the realities of the chambre-de-bonne, lack of cash, and bar hopping. But sometimes an idealized Paris with a romantic storyline is exactly what you need a cold-winter’s night .

Watch “Let’s Dance” on Netflix here (in French with English subtitles).

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