Dare – Review

Dare

Sundance Film Festival

Director: Adam Salky

Alexa (Emmy Rossum) is the typical over-achieving high school brown-noser who wants to be a Broadway star, but once she’s told she has no future in the business because she’s still a child, she transforms herself into the stereotypical “bad girl”. As she lusts after Johnny Drake (Zach Gilford), the school’s bad boy, her nerdy/shy best friend, Ben (Ashley Springer), voyeuristically watches from the shadows. What begins as a promising comedy spirals out of control into a disjointed drama focusing on love, betrayal, and friendship. Eerily similar to Andrew Fleming’s 1994 film Threesome, the subject matter is uninventive and dull. While the overall narrative may not be original, the best ingredient was Salky’s perfect presentation of the hilarious awkwardness of losing your virginity. When making a dramedy, there’s a difficult formula one must adhere to carefully so as not to neglect either side. Dare miscalculates this equation leaving nothing but a bland taste in your mouth.

– Jimmy Martin