Heavenly Bodies - A Review: I Promise It's Not An Adult Film
I promise, It's only adult film adjacent.
🍆👌🏽👈🏾👍🏾
I promise, It's only adult film adjacent. 🍆👌🏽👈🏾👍🏾
Only adult film adjacent.
During a bit of a depressive phase yesterday, I decided my solution for feeling better would be to see a movie. I've got the Alamo Drafthouse Movie Pass and used it to see a film from 1984 that I had never heard of. The film was called Heavenly Bodies and I wasn't sure if it was an adult film or not. I didn't want to end up like Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens), but I had to go and find out.
Heavenly Bodies certainly sounds like an Adult Film
Yes movie… I see your point.
Luckily it was not an adult film. It was adult film, adjacent. It had a lot of wiggling bodies and some great dancing. If you love “skinny minnies” in workout jammies, this could be the movie for you. I had to remember what it was like for the pre-teens of 1984. In the long long ago before the internet existed and pornographic films were only found in the woods, many producers wanted to attract those kids and their older siblings. To do this they created films that answer the question heard often, "Are there any boobs in it?" So these filmmakers were sure to stuff as many breasts in a movie as the ratings would let them. Heavenly Bodies was kind of like that in certain easily editable parts, yet it was a lot more than that too.
Interesting… So other than teens seeing boobs, what's this movie about?
Heavenly Bodies is a 1984 movie about gym culture. A very 80s secretary named Samantha (Cynthia Dale) is spending her life typing and grabbing coffee for very 80s CEOs. That isn't her passion though. She doesn’t like typing and coffee nearly as much as shaking her heavenly body to the beat. She watches the clock every day waiting for her chance to leave so she and her two friends can find a very messy warehouse to rent and start their very 80s fitness studio. Samantha gets in trouble for using the ‘80s work printer to make flyers but does it anyway! They find their spot, get to work cleaning it, and create their new gym called Heavenly Bodies. That’s right! The gym is called Heavenly Bodies just like this movie. So it’s not an adult film. It’s a regular film about dancing and fitness.
Samantha quits her job and becomes a premier coach, and due to all those flyers they handed out it doesn't take long for Heavenly Bodies to become a hit. These friends didn't want to make a gym like these other stodgy, weight-focused gyms. They wanted to make a place that focused on dance fitness or jazzercize a.k.a. that thing Goldie Hawn was not excited to do during that 80s movie about a woman coaching football called Wildcats. That’s where Wesley Snipes and Woodie Harrelson first met.
Wildcats: "It's the sport of kings... Better than diamond rings... Football." Thanks LL Cool J!
This music-fitness hybrid is important, because as much as this movie is inspired by “adult film names,” it's just as inspired by early 80s MTV as every scene has a soundtrack. Characters talk over songs, dance over songs, or have 5 to 10 lines before the music starts up again. Heavenly Bodies is as much about dance as it is about gyms as it is about 80s sex appeal. I was hoping for some masterpiece Footloose vibes but got something so focused on dancing that the gym fight part caught me by surprise.
After Heavenly Bodies gets popular, a football player named Steve (Richard Rebiere) who’s team Sam had started dance training really wants to take her out after he and his teammate lose in a high booty yoga pushup contest. She makes Steve work pretty hard because she has to protect her son Joel (Stuart Stone) whom we don't know she has until the second fourth of the movie. The kid was a great actor.
Dance friends 4 Eva!
Sam is so good at teaching her dance dance fitness classes, her friends inspire her to try out at a TV Station to have her own morning workout show. Samantha goes there and beats the bigger more weights-focused gym’s co-owner Jack’s (Walter George Alton) girlfriend Debbie (Laura Henry), who was a shoo-in due to them taking the director out to dinner. Unfortunately, the woman running the TV Station forces the director to choose Samantha. Sam just has that “it factor” that Debbie can’t compete with. After a very long 80's leg warmer dance scene, Sam gets to train at 5 am and keeps running Heavenly Bodies. Her boyfriend Steve is pissed.
For a movie about dancing and fitness, this sure is convoluted
Jack is having sex with Debbie while watching Sam on TV... I KNOW!
You're right!
From there it's blah blah blah, more dancing, more potential cheating, more actual cheating, and water polo! There is also some tattle telling girlfriends telling daddykins to buy the Heavenly Bodies warehouse to kick them out in 30 days. Then there is a workout marathon between Heavenly Bodies and Jack’s gyms. This super 80s workout fest lasts 10 full hours, and like Highlander, there can be only one.
Can you guess what happens next? Probably.
Should I watch Heavenly Bodies?
It depends. If you're a fan of Physical on Apple TV you should check out this classic 80s movie about dancing out. Also, if you love 80s films, miss early 80s MTV, want to see a movie where a developer tries to tell kids where they can or can't dance this also could be fun diversion. If you desire a teensy-tiny glimpse of a stripper named Sugar's breasts I suggest you check this out. If you can find it, of course.
I'm not sure how hot the lead is, but she can dance her ass off, both figuratively and literally
I had never heard of this movie until the day I went to see it at the Alamo Drafthouse. You better be pretty committed to old-school cinema to track down anything about where this movie might be in 2024. It's worth it if you're into this kind of thing. Otherwise, don't bother. Watch more horror movies or raunchy comedies like Prom Dates. That movie was fun. Do that instead.
I didn't get the Footloose vibes I wanted, but I enjoyed this film from a generation ago. Plus during the credits, I saw the names of 2 songwriters that surprised me. There was Geddy Lee from Rush and Michael Bolton from MICHAEL BOLTON. That's like 100 years’ worth of songwriting in a film where the music in this film never ever stops. So dance you 80s friends and lovers, and don't ever let anyone tell you to stop!
That hair! Those dreamy eyes. What does Michael Bolton do when a woman loves him?
