38 Thoughts I Had While Rewatching ‘Save the Last Dance’

In this life, there are run-of-the-mill rom-com fans, and then there are “stayed home every Saturday night of high school watching rom-coms, resulting in an unhealthy attachment to the genre” fans. Care to guess which kind I am? Okay, fine, twist my arm, I’ll tell you: I’m the latter, and one of my favorite rom-coms to throw on in my high-school-loser era was Save the Last Dance, starring Julia Stiles as a wannabe ballerina who moves to Chicago’s South Side and…learns to culturally appropriate? It’s currently on Netflix, so let’s dive in, shall we?

1. Netflix deems this movie a “96% match” for me. I refuse to be embarrassed.
2. Sad flashback time: Julia Stiles’s mom dies in a car crash while Julia’s auditioning for Juilliard.
3. Oh yeah, and Julia Stiles screws up the audition.
4. Julia Stiles’s long-lost dad, the kind of guy who wears a fedora to re-meet his estranged daughter, picks her up at the train station, and it’s instantly clear they’re not besties.
5. Oh no, he eats Hungry Man dinners 🙁
6. Julia Stiles is alarmed to see that her new school has metal detectors. Also, she’s seemingly the only white girl enrolled?
7. They’re discussing In Cold Blood in English class, and Julia Stiles shows off that she totes knows the book, but a hot stranger gives a better analysis of the book than she does.
8. Hot stranger is actually Sean Patrick Thomas, and he plays the brother of Kerry Washington, who is an absolute delight as a teen mom who’s nice to Julia Stiles for seemingly no reason. (Seriously, she’s a lot nicer than I would be.)
9. Important life lesson from Kerry: “Don’t put your shit on the floor.”
10. Oh God, lunch-table anxiety. I’m so glad high school is over.
11. Q from Moesha is a bad boy who’s back at school, in a “finish school or go to jail” situation. He’s friends with Sean Patrick Thomas, which becomes important later.
12. Speaking of important, Kerry is wearing some stunning shiny blue pants whose origins I need to know about.
13. Ooh, Sean is waiting for his acceptance letter from Georgetown, I forgot.
14. Julia holds her own with a douchey fake-ID man, and they all go to a club.
15. Julia meets Kerry’s baby and her very sweet, helpful mom before they hit the club, and Kerry gives Julia a makeover that makes me sick with laughter (large hoops, head scarf…honestly, should she be wearing this?).
16. Dance battle time! Bianca Lawson is there—insanely hot as ever in a mean-girl role—and she and Kerry face off after some very cringe dialogue from Julia.
17. Bianca used to date Sean, but he doesn’t want to be entangled with her anymore; Julia and Sean angry-hot-dance until a fight breaks everything up.
18. God, the commitment it takes to go out in a Chicago winter…I admire it.
19. Sean teaches Julia to dance, and it’s all good until she walks in on Q holding someone up in the bathroom. She wants Sean to ditch him, but he’s too loyal.
20. Ah, it turns out Sean and Q got into some trouble a while back, and Q took the heat for Sean.
21. God, Kerry is so charming and too good for this movie.
22. Aw, Sean gets into Georgetown!
23. OMG, what a sweetie; Sean takes Julia to the ballet as a surprise, but she freaks out and finally tells him the truth about her mom.
24. And just like that, Julia is ballet-dancing again, except to hip-hop this time. Bold!
25. Bianca tries to steal Sean on the dance floor, and…is it bad that I’m on her side?
26. Who gave Julia that one tiny braid? Whoever they are, they need to answer for their crimes.
27. Q wants to go rough up some guys on the West Side, but Sean is against it.
28. Girl fight! Julia and Bianca get into it in gym class.
29. Bianca tells Julia she has a problem with “white girls like you. The whole world ain’t enough, you’ve got to conquer ours too.” Fair!
30. Q calls Julia a “trailer trash ho,” so Sean hits him in the face.
31. Kerry finally gives Julia a talking-to about how maybe not everyone is going to be thrilled to see her dating Sean, and it seems to hit home.
32. Breakup time!
33. Sad scene of Julia walking down a hallway alone. Whatever, she’s still in braids and hoops.
34. Sean tries to convince Q to walk away from another dustup, but it doesn’t work out.
35. Insane sequence of Julia dancing at her second Juilliard audition while a drive-by shooting takes place.
36. With a little help from Sean, Julia does a hip-hop ballet routine that…well, let’s just say it involves a chair.
37. Oh wow, she’s in! Just like that?
38. Julia ends the movie dancing with Sean and Kerry at the club, all while wearing an even more appropriative braids look. Oh, well.