Featuring Patrick Swayze's heat-seeking pelvis, Jennifer Grey's original nose, and lavish helpings of dance-floor sensuality and coming-of-age nostalgia, Dirty Dancing was one of the great guilty pleasures of the 1980s. A genuine sleeper hit, it became an instant cult classic. For anyone who grew up during the 1980s, the film occupies a niche not far removed from that occupied by such Brat Pack favorites as The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire; seeing it was a sort of rite of passage. When it comes down to it, Dirty Dancing, while not exactly an example of great filmmaking, is a prime example of great entertainment. Like any number of coming-of-age dramas, what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in heart. As effusive and well-meaning as its teenage protagonist, Dirty Dancing is an unabashedly romantic exercise in both the suspension of disbelief and the healing powers of well-choreographed nostalgia.
