Here's something I wrote about my favorite 80's movie

Dream to Believe tells the story of Robin Crew, played by the almost unbearably adorable Olivia D’Abo.

One can’t help but fall in love almost immediately after meeting her due to her very awkward running, which it’s later discovered is caused by a limp, due to a knee injury she suffered after a car accident that left her father dead. She now lives with her loving and caring mother, her abusive step-father, and her bad actress sister. She dreams of becoming a gymnast, but is no longer able due to her injury, so instead she helps out around the gym, watching everyone else show their stuff, and pines after the hunky guy, even though the much dreamier Tommy (played by the incomparable Keanu Reeves) is pining for her. She also works under her stepfather at his laundromat. Despite not being able to compete, Robin still practices her moves in secret in the middle of the night at some kind of carpet store or something, leading to this incredible sequence:

She’s very much an outcast at school, and is bullied constantly by two gymnastics cunts, who at one point trick her into showing up to a formal party at the hunky guy’s house all dressed up in a very informal fashion.

She makes only one friend, Carly, who convinces her to join the gymnastics team, anyway, despite her bad knee, and lets Robin use her private exercise room, and also goes thrift store shopping with her at an amazing thrift store where clothes are piled up into huge mountains for the customers to roll around in.

Eventually, she’s able to show up the snooty rich cunts at a drive-in diner, as seen in this scene here:

Meanwhile, Tommy continues to pursue her, but she’s not interested. Tommy’s friend advises him to just ignore her and start dating other people, and then she will come to him. This method works instantaneously, and they are soon a couple, just in time for him to comfort her after her mother’s sudden death. Her gymnastics teacher then tells her she’s dealing with too much to compete, but Robin is determined and convinces her to give her another shot. Once at the competition, she has some doubts, but with the help of her boyfriend Tommy, her friend Carly (herself disqualified because of an addiction to diet pills), her sister (sorta), and her guardian black friends who teach her the importance of “getting [her] ass across the Falls!”, she is able to overcome, leading to an emotional and uplifting finale.

The plot, the fashion, and the characterizations in this film are typical 80’s fare (which basically makes it automatically good, because that shit never gets old), and it’s got enough strangeness and moments of perhaps unnecessary bleakness to really stand out. What really makes it great, though, and I would argue that this is in fact The Greatest 80’s Movie Ever Made, is the overabundance of charm from the two outstanding leads. With chubby cheeks and a bit of an overbite, Olivia D’Abo doesn’t have typical Hollywood good looks, but she is seriously as cute as humanly fucking possible. Likewise, Keanu is young and handsome, and gives one of the most sincere and likable performances of his career. This movie has had multiple video releases, also under the titles of Flying and Teenage Dream, and is constantly going out of print. I can’t recommend this film enough, and it is so worth tracking down. Your best bet is to look for it on VHS, either to rent or to buy cheaply. The DVD releases are ripped from the video, anyway, so there’s no downgrade in quality. Or I may just make it available for download someday soon.

To finish, here’s a clip of the actors discussing how underrated their movie is:

Comments

[kemosabe33]

Dream to Believe is one of my favorite films. Keanu is one of the greatest actors of all time...I cant get over how amazing he is. Lately I've been obsessively watching this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qZu78PaKyI

btw...what happened to your "No Fatties" video? It seems your youtube account has been deleted...you have it posted anywhere else? Before it was taken down I was watching it at least once a day for several weeks...I need it to get thru my day.

[Placenta Ovaries]

Wow, thank you for being a fan of both No Fatties and (more importantly) Dream to Believe!
My youtube account was recently deleted because they have a "three strikes, you're out" policy about videos they have to remove, and I had two removed a long time ago (one for copyright shit, one for being "inappropriate"), and then a couple weeks ago they took down a third one for copyright reasons, and so I lost all my videos, comments, and favorites because of it, which I think is pretty fucked. Anyway, I'll sign up for a new account very soon, and put No Fatties right back on there.

[kemosabe33]

I'm glad to see "No Fatties" is back up on youtube. Youtubes' copyright rules dont make any sense to me.

btw...have you ever seen "Reflections of Evil"? I think you might like it, Damon Packard is a genius. Here's the trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ymuk_PXAdMY