A Dança da Alma

Lift Me Up tells the story of young Sarah Frangenberg who has just lost her mother in a car accident. Mom was the glue that held that family together as she and her Marine Corps sergeant stepdad Todd Cohoon don't really get along all that well. Both are grieving, neither seems to communicate the grief to the other.

She's concentrating on her goal of a dance career, but seems lost and not putting her all into her work. In addition she's targeted by some of the school's upper crust mean girls for reasons I can't quite figure out.

Shane Harper is in this and for the life of me I can't figure out how they didn't use him in any of the dancing for that is what he does.

A good performance is that of Chris Browning as Sarah's real dad whom she goes to live with, but finds out soon enough they're not a good fit.

Average teen drama, nothing special but for the dance.

This was a beautiful, mesmerizing father-daughter story. It was not exclusively sad, which I was thankful for. The writers (or whoever's job it is) incorporated a good amount of subtle humor - enough to strengthen it from purely a tear-jerker to a story of relationships and healing. The father-daughter element was a perfect story idea. They communicated that the best family relationships are not always biological. It's more about who commits to taking care of you in the ups and downs than who contributed to your birth. Call me a sucker for a good daddy story, but I'll take it. It's so touching to watch good men grow into good fathers; the world needs more of them.

All kinds of stereotypes and cliché nonsense if it wasn't for the flat out ridiculous. Slow and boring. I wanted to give up but wanted to see how they pulled it together.