Ren McCormack (Bacon) and his mother have moved from Chicago to the town of Bomont, Utah, where Ren quickly finds himself on the outside of town society looking in. Naturally rebellious, he finds the small town's restrictive culture even more repressive than do his classmates who've grown up there. The focus of the generational divide that's smothering Bomont's young people is rock music and dancing, both of which aren't allowed in city limits. Ren manages to make a few friends, including Willard (Chris Penn) and his girlfriend Rusty (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Rusty's friend Ariel Moore (Singer), the unruly daughter of what seems to be Bomont's only pastor, Shaw Moore (Lithgow). But Ariel's current boyfriend -- an abusive jerk -- and Ren's reputation for troublemaking only drive the wedge deeper. He decides that he has to get the city council to rescind its dancing ban and let the town teens enjoy themselves a little in order to save Bomont from itself.
As Pitchford writes his story, Ren's main antagonist is not Shaw Moore as much as the town of Bomont itself. This focus highlights a number of the narrative clunkers Footloose works with -- such as a Utah town where everyone sounds like they're from Georgia and a small rural town with its own high school gymnastics team. It's possible to imagine a Utah town without a Latter-Day Saints presence, but the rest of the story gaps show up even worse when watching this movie some 35 years after release.
As mentioned above, Footloose is saved by its cast and its soundtrack. It's Bacon's first major leading role, and his charisma and talent keep Ren from being the cardboard Teen Rebel the movie could easily let him be. Lithgow brought his two Academy Award Supporting Actor nominations to playing Shaw Moore, and invested him with genuine compassion and feeling where just about any other actor would have played a broad fundamentalist caricature. He's not a cruel fun-killer but a man who genuinely believes he is doing the right thing. Dianne Wiest takes the small role of Vi Moore and crafts a place as the conscience that Shaw hasn't listened to for too long.
One surprise a repeat watching can show is how well Lori Singer does in giving dimension and depth to what could also have been a caricature role. She makes clear that Ariel's bravado and sexually aggressive presentation mask her own grief at the loss of her brother and the estrangement from her father. When Shaw confronts and chastises book burners, Singer's face shows a dawning realization that her father is carrying his own burdens and dealing with them as best he can. He doesn't consider preventing her from enjoying life as his primary job after all. The rest of the cast does fine in their supporting roles but don't have the same room to stretch them and settle for what they're given.
As mentioned above, the Footloose soundtrack, with its insanely catchy Kenny Loggins title track, Deniece Williams' dance rouser "Let's Hear It for the Boy," Mike Reno and Ann Wilson's slow dance "love theme" "Almost Paradise" and Bonnie Tyler's anthemic declaration "Holding Out for a Hero" was a case of excellent timing. Music videos for the first two helped propel them to chart dominance and all four served to keep the movie on the pop culture burner longer than it merited.
Footloose had only limited success as a stage musical and as a remake -- probably because the original movie's success was so very much a product of its time. Even the movie poster was more or less unrepeatable, as a modern audience would have wondered at the Walkman on Ren's waist and the strange headphones over his ears. Nostalgia can make a brief return visit to Bomont, Utah, a fun little trip and even highlight some previously unnoticed features. But the story of its great awakening and of the people in it was a product of a particular time, and that time has passed.
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