A movie about dance that actually has dancing in it? Sugar Plum Twist must be some sort of weird Twilight Zone thing.
Natalia (Jamie Gray Hyder) is a professional ballerina who has returned home to Richmond after an injury. She is working with a local ballet company in the hopes of becoming a choreographer. While auditioning dancers for the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the upcoming production of The Nutcracker, Natalia meets Viviana (Laura Rosguer). Vivi specializes in Salsa but dreams of ballet dancing. Together, Natalia and Vivi try to revolutionize the Christmas classic by adding a bit of Latin flare.
As someone familiar with dance and theater, there were some technical issues with Sugar Plum Twist. However, these wouldn’t be noticeable to people who don’t know the inner workings of putting on a production. Even with my background knowledge, the technical issues were small gripes. Nothing that took away from my enjoyment of the movie.
And, yes, I did enjoy the movie. While I’m not sure that all of the actors were, in fact, dancers, Twist was able to make me believe the characters were amazing dancers. I even enjoyed the big Latin dance at the end.
So, should you watch it? I would recommend Twist to anyone who enjoys watching dance. I will note that a lot of the dancing in the movie is Latin so if you are looking for tons of ballet, this isn’t where you will find it. However, the mix of ballet and Latin dancing is interesting and I do think it’s worth a watch even if you only enjoy ballet.