Heavenly Bodies (1985) MGM/Drama-Musical RT: 90 minutes Rated R (some sexuality, nudity, language, some violence) Director: Lawrence Dane Screenplay: Lawrence Dane and Ron Base Music: Kevin Benson, David Chackler and Irwin Mazur (supervisors) Cinematography: Thomas Burstyn Release date: February 1, 1985 (US) Cast: Cynthia Dale, Richard Rebiere, Walter George Alton, Laura Henry, Stuart Stone, Patricia Idlette, Pam Henry, Linda Sorenson, Reiner Schwarz, Cec Linder, Micki Moore. Box Office: $1.8M (US)
Rating: ***
I’d like to open my review of Heavenly Bodies with a funny anecdote published in one of the local newspapers shortly after opening weekend. At a showing at a Philadelphia theater, a few people walked out and demanded a refund due to what they claimed was false advertising. They thought it would be a slasher movie and it wasn’t. Their reasoning, what else could it be with the word “bodies” in the title. Uh, did you people happen to notice the poster as you entered the theater? Did you not see the newspaper or TV ads? You can plainly see Heavenly Bodies isn’t a horror movie. As I recall, the manager refunded their money, but I suspect it was just to get rid of them before he got infected by their stupidity.
I knew what Heavenly Bodies was when I went to see it that Saturday afternoon. It’s a Canadian-made Flashdance knock-off about a secretary who becomes an aerobics superstar after quitting her soul-crushing office job to open a studio with her two friends. Samantha Blair (Dale, My Bloody Valentine), the single mom of the most obnoxious kid on the planet (Stone, Blue Monkey), has a dream. She longs to break out of the prison that is her 9-to-5 job (endless typing and making copies) and open her own aerobics studio. She and her two besties, KC (Idlette, Ginger Snaps 2) and Patty (Pam Henry, Prom Night), rent an old warehouse, clean it up and open Heavenly Bodies (hence the title!) in record time. The place is an instant success and why not. Sam is a likable lady. And boy, can she dance.
As if being a successful businesswoman isn’t enough, Sam lands a gig hosting a morning exercise show on a local cable station. It incurs the vengeful wrath of Debbie (Laura Henry, Separate Vacations), the aerobics instructor at rival gym Jack Pearson’s Sporting Life. She’s the girlfriend of Jack himself (Alton, 10), an arrogant bastard who failed to get Debbie the job. His guy, the director (Schwarz, Videodrome), is overruled by the show’s producer (Sorenson, Class of 1984) who astutely observes, “That other girl, she’s got something special.”
Who says a modern 80s woman can’t have it all? Sam finds romance with Steve (Rebiere, Happy Birthday to Me), a handsome football player who thinks he knows the way to a woman’s heart. It takes some effort on his part (i.e. a goofy Gorilla-gram), but he finally convinces Sam to have dinner with him. She gets all dressed up only for him to show up at her place and make dinner (pierogies if it matters). It isn’t long before they’re in love, a development established by a montage showing Steve spending the day with Sam and little Joel (her annoying son), playing football and sharing secret kisses when the rugrat isn’t looking.
Jack becomes intrigued by Sam and does a little reconnaissance of his own, flirting with her on the set of her show and taking her on a date after she cools things off with Steve after a situation that’s never actually resolved. The date consists of Sam going gymnastics for Jack followed by a dip in his club’s swimming pool. She rejects Jack’s advances and rightfully so. The guy’s a creep. Debbie, still seeing red over losing the TV gig, sees them together and decides to really screw Sam over. She convinces the gym’s primary investor Walter (Linder, Goldfinger) to buy the building that houses Heavenly Bodies and kick Sam out effectively shutting down her business.
Not one to give up, plucky Sam publicly challenges Jack to a dance-off of sorts, ten of her best clients against his ten best in a marathon aerobics competition. It works like this. It consists of hour-long blocks with ten-minute rest periods in between. The participants basically dance until they drop. The last man or woman standing wins it all. If Sam’s team wins, they don’t have to vacate and she has the option to buy the property. Ah, but there’s an added wrinkle, a fly in the ointment. The night before the contest, which is to be televised, Jack shows up at Sam’s apartment and assaults her, leaving her with a painful leg injury that gets worse as the competition proceeds. Naturally, this earns him a beatdown by Steve who gets disqualified for his chivalry. He still loves Sam and she him, but I’m sure you already knew that.
If memory serves and it usually does, Heavenly Bodies played for a single week before most theaters dropped it. It wasn’t making any money. It earned a meager $1.1M in its only weekend of wide release. Critics weren’t too kind to it either. Me, I liked it enough to rent it on video when it came out and record it when it showed on cable. It’s not a perfect movie by any means. It’s formulaic and predictable. Some things don’t make sense. For example, exactly what function do Sam’s two bffs serve at the studio? All they seem to do is stand around and watch her strut her stuff. Occasionally, they deliver news both good and bad. Never once do we see them teach a class. Is Sam the only instructor at Heavenly Bodies? It sure seems that way.
One of things I like about Heavenly Bodies is that it acknowledges what it is early on. In order to drum up business for her new venture, Sam and her friends hand out flyers on the street. In one scene, she’s shown standing in front of a Flashdance poster outside a movie poster. She glances at it approvingly like she knows. I don’t know if that was the intention of director Lawrence Dane, but I like it.
Heavenly Bodies is the sole directorial effort by Dane, an actor who appeared in some of Canada’s finest- e.g. Bear Island (1979), Nothing Personal (1980), Scanners (1981) and Happy Birthday to Me (1981). He was also in It Takes Two (1995) and Bride of Chucky (1998). It’s a quickie production, a five-week shot in Toronto circa November 1983. It features some good numbers including one in which Dale dances like nobody’s watching in an empty TV studio. She romps and swirls around equipment even doing a flip off a rolling ladder. It’s like something out of an old musical only the dancer is wearing a sexy leotard that definitely doesn’t meet the standards of decency as laid out by the pre-1968 Production Code.
The acting in Heavenly Bodies is okay. Dale makes a likable leading lady. She’s HOT! It helps that she can actually dance. She gives the movie’s best performance. Rebiere is pretty good as the love interest, a hunky bonehead whose idea of courting a lady is following her in his Jeep talking to her while he’s driving. Naturally, he crashes into another car. He jumps out of his vehicle in full swearing mode only to learn the other driver is a priest. Alton plays a convincing bastard while Laura Henry nails it as the icy blonde bitch. I could have done without the kid, but whatever.
The soundtrack for Heavenly Bodies contains songs destined to receive little-to-no airplay. I don’t recall hearing a single one on the radio or seeing a single video on MTV. The songs aren’t bad; they’re merely forgettable. I do, however, like “Breaking Out of Prison” (Sparks) and “The Beast in Me” (Bonnie Pointer).
For all its faults, I do like Heavenly Bodies. It’s typical 80s trash, the kind delivered with flash albeit not as much as other Flashdance rip-offs. Although produced in part by Playboy productions, it has only brief flashes of nudity. That, I know, was disappointing to teenage boys who watched in hopes of seeing lots of bare flesh. Me, I was there for the dancing. I know how unbelievable that sounds coming from a straight man, but it’s the truth.
