Lone Star Cinema: Dancer, Texas Pop. 81

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Dancer, Texas

In an early scene in Dancer, Texas Pop. 81, an out-of-tune little band plays "Pomp and Circumstance" at a graduation ceremony. The band -- three kids playing their instruments gamely but very badly -- is a great metaphor for life in the dwindling West Texas hamlet of Dancer, a place as tiny as the band and in many ways just as hopeless.

Writer/director Tim McCanlies's 1998 film follows four of the town's new high-school graduates -- there are only five students in the graduating class -- as they spend their last day or two in Dancer before leaving town for new and hopefully far more exciting adventures in Los Angeles. Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is in some ways a scaled-down, Permian Basin version of American Graffiti, a story of young people torn between the familiar but limiting comforts of their current lives and the uncertain but enticing possibilities of adulthood.

The film's quartet of lead characters have long planned to leave, but their families and friends won't let go of them without a fight. Terrell Lee Lusk (Peter Facinelli) wants to escape the controlling influence of his pushy mother, who insists he stay in town to work in the family oil business. The family of John Hemphill (Eddie Mills) wants him to stay on the ranch and maybe study agriculture at nearby Sul Ross State University. The awkward, lovelorn Squirrel (Ethan Embry) lives in a decrepit trailer with his drunken, generally useless and occasionally absentee father, whose survival is questionable if Squirrel leaves him. Unlike his friends, Keller Coleman (Breckin Meyer) has no major battle to fight over leaving; he lives with his crusty, widowed grandfather, who encourages Keller to leave for greener pastures.

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 has little plot or action; the film is character driven, a collection of thoughtful scenes in which the four young men struggle try to reconcile their family ties and obligations with their dreams of life in the big city. Initially they're all more than ready to leave, but as the story unfolds, they begin to question whether they can leave behind their families and friends. Family bonds are powerful indeed, and while the bright lights of Los Angeles glow with exciting prospects, they're also completely foreign and a little scary.

I enjoyed Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 when I saw it during its theatrical release; I found it a poignant, funny, pleasant film with an observant script that effectively captures life in a small Texas town. After watching the film again on DVD, however, it doesn't work as well for me. Everything is a bit too pleasant, chaste, sanitized and family friendly; Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 needs far more grit and angst to be truly engaging. The film also would be far more interesting if the four main characters weren't so nice and eager to please everyone. A less perfect, more morally complex group of young men would be more believable and create some much-needed dramatic tension.

That said, Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is entertaining enough to recommend to Texas film fans, at least those who can overlook its somewhat simplistic, Disneyfied atmosphere. It's an amusing, beautifully shot, generally well crafted film, one with universal coming-of-age themes that reach far beyond its small-town setting.

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is available on a DVD released shortly after the film's theatrical run in 1998. The DVD includes only the most basic extras: scene selections and English, Spanish and French audio tracks and subtitles.  I don't recommend buying the DVD -- especially at a whopping retail price of nearly $40 -- but Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is worth a rental or download.

Austin/Texas connections: Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 was filmed in Alpine, Fort Davis and Jeff Davis County. A notable Texas screenwriter and director, Tim McCanlies grew up in Bryan and attended Texas A&M, the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University. He also wrote and directed Secondhand Lions and The 2 Bobs, both filmed in Texas, and is directing the Austin-shot When Angels Sing. Wayne Tippit, who plays Keller's grandfather, is from Lubbock.