Time to Dance: a story not about love, but about dance.

Khevna.P.Shah, INN/Bangalore

Content Writer

Throughout the history of Indian cinema, dance films have been enjoyed by a large group of audiences. Movies such as ‘Aja Nach le’, ‘ABCD’, ‘Street dancer’, ‘Yeh Ballet’, etc have made the audience go crazy on the dance moves and groovy music. The main element of the dance films is the spectacular dance moves along with foot-tapping music and superlative cinematography.

Time to dance, directed by Stanly de Costa takes you on a small tour to  Brandford, UK, which has been the home of the Bollywood industry for over 100 years now. The movie revolves around Isha(debutante Isabella Kaif), a ballet dancer who gets injured and is replaced by her partner in the upcoming Dance Championship. Being a ballerina instructor at her mother’s debt drowning institution, Isha and her sister Meher(Waluscha De Sousa) try saving it with the help of the bank representative Navdeep Singh (Saqib Saleem). Rishab(Sooraj Pancholi) is a waiter and street dancer, overcoming PTSD who helps Isha win the championship. Along with Rishab is his friend Sadadev (Rajpal Yadav) who never seemed to have forgotten up making sly references to it in the entire movie.

Time to dance is less of a love story and more of a dance story. The movie subtly represented the modern representation of Indian slavery.  From an Indian working as a butler at Lady Cottenham’s (Natasha Powell) mansion, the head of Dance Council, the politics played by her, eliminating Isha from the dance competition to using Indians as a prop for mere entertainment did give off the cliche relationship of Indians and Britishers. The entire movie portrayed the protagonist as the victim, who is unable to fight her own battles and seems to be helpless.

Both the actors Sooraj Pancholi and Isabella Kaif seemed dedicated to the dance moves and had done it with perfection and elegance, but for a movie to be a success, this is not the only criteria. Pancholi and Kaif had put in good efforts in the dance moves, but their acting was colorless. Raj pal Yadav was best at his comical deliveries and his slang of broken English keeps you entertained throughout the movie. The comical deliveries were often used for mocking the British, like calling the Latin Ballroom dancing ‘angrezon ka dandiya’.The only impressive outcome of debutante Isabella Kaif was her dance postures which were elegant and exemplary, unlike her limited expression. Seeing Isabella Kaif on-screen reminds the audience of her sister, Katrina Kaif,

The screenplay wasn’t smooth and had few hiccups. Apart from that, the ending also was quite predictable and abrupt, as the credits start to appear before the movie could end smoothly. Being a dance film, the songs are expected to be groovy but were a disappointment except for the mashup of two Hindi romantic songs ‘Main agar Kahoon’and ‘Bol do na zara’ being played in the Latin-Ballroom competition was truly magical. The choreography by  Stanley and Remo D-Souza is absolutely mesmerizing. Unlike the previously directed movies by Stanly de costa, time to dance solely focuses on Latin -ballroom dancing.

This movie is not about money or love, but it’s about winning dedication, and the harsh politics in the dance tournaments. It would have been nice if there was more focus on the mental health aspect as well, as William quoted, “Dancing is to win in the mind first, later comes the dance floor”.

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