The setup’s simple enough. A small Utah town, spooked by a tragedy from years ago, has outlawed dancing. But then an agitator materializes in the form of Kevin Bacon. Here, he calls himself Ren McCormack. He comes from the Big City (Chicago). His dancing legs are itchy, and he isn’t afraid to show his rebellious streak to the powers that be. He pits himself toe-to-toe with the town’s spiritual leader, Rev. Shaw Moore (John Lithgow), who is convinced that music and dancing are a surefire recipe for spiritual ruin. So he had it all shut down. No dancing. No fun. No anything he can’t control.
While Ren is quick to make enemies, he’s quicker to make friends. He also catches the eye of a girl named Ariel (Lori Singer), who turns out to be the daughter of (who else?) ol’ Rev. Shaw Moore. But Ariel was already well into the psychological deep end before Ren showed up. She has a death wish. She stands in front of trains, climbs onto speeding cars. And yet somehow all of that feels safer than her abusive boyfriend (Jim Youngs) or the psychological alienation from her father. But Ren knows how to redirect this pent-up energy—to move without apology. Let a driving backbeat, a good melody, and wistful lyrics relieve you of your darkest thoughts and impulses. And with that spirit, he ends up dragging the local youth out of the shadows.
While this film has a fine theme, its undoing is in its indecision over whether it wants to be a sermon or a pep rally. It flirts with gravitas—moral lectures, weepy monologues—but this comes off as overly somber and melodramatic. I never quite buy into it. What really comprises the soul of Footloose is its jukebox. Kenny Loggins, Bonnie Tyler, Deniece Williams—every track comes charging in like it’s been waiting backstage for years, champing at the bit to finally get its chance to emerge. When “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” pipes in, the plot’s suddenly gone. The film is moving, and you want to move right along with it.
Bacon carries the film with pure kinetic energy—defiance, nerve, and an ability to freeform dance. His sidekick is Willard (Chris Penn), a farm boy whose sense of rhythm is so poor that he might as well have put his work boots on the wrong feet. Their lesson—Ren teaching Willard how to dance without looking like he’s been strapped to an electric chair—is pure cornball magic.
This is a movie that pretends to be about sin, salvation, and maybe the outside agitator having a point. But what it’s really about is release—about the moment a bunch of kids who’ve been vibrating in place, destroying themselves, finally get to turn up the volume. While the dramatic elements come across a bit too clunky and heavy-handed, Footloose knows what it’s selling: the rush of rebellion in the form of a dance floor. The feeling that to dance is to fight—and the fight, as ever, is for freedom.