Critical Response
Flashdance has seldom received favorable reviews from professional critics. Roger Ebert placed it on his list of Most Hated films, stating: "Jennifer Beals shouldn't feel bad. She is a natural talent, she is fresh and engaging here, and only needs to find an agent with a natural talent for turning down scripts". Halliwell's Film Guide gave it one star out of four while The New Yorker described the film as "Basically, a series of rock videos." The Guardian described it as "A preposterous success." Detractors of the film argue that in addition to the shallow plot, the film represents the worst excesses of 1980s film making with its emphasis on short sequences and rapid editing between shots. The screenplay of the film was nominated for a Razzie (Golden Raspberry) award. A common criticism is that Michael Nouri, who was thirty-six at the time of filming, seems too old to be the love interest of 18-year-old Jennifer Beals. Critics have also questioned whether an 18-year-old woman would have been given a job as a welder in an old-fashioned steel mill.
The dimly-lit cinematography and montage-style editing are due in part to the fact that most of Jennifer Beals' dancing in the film was performed by a body double. Her main dance double is the French actress Marine Jahan, while the breakdancing that Alex performs in the audition sequence at the end of the film was doubled by the male dancer Crazy Legs. The shot of Alex diving through the air in slow motion during the audition sequence was performed by Sharon Shapiro, who was a professional gymnast.
Although Flashdance has been compared to Saturday Night Fever (1977) with a female lead, the tone of the two films is very different. Saturday Night Fever takes a much more downbeat look at the world of people trapped in low-paid jobs, while Flashdance works best as a Post-disco/New Wave era retelling of the Cinderella story with all the implausibilities that this brings.
Like the original theatrical release of Saturday Night Fever (also from Paramount Pictures), Flashdance was rated R by the MPAA, which meant that audience members under seventeen years old required an accompanying parent or guardian to watch the film. This was due to some strong language, nudity and sexual content which were removed for the television version of the film.
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