Netflix’s original film Work It is a coming of age dance comedy that has a 100% guarantee to make you smile and make you dance. Starring Sabrina Carpenter as Quinn, a smart high school senior who has to start her own dance team to get accepted to her dream college. The dancing is fun, breathtaking, and inspiring. But there’s so much more to the film than just dancing. Work It is a straight-up good time. Director Laura Terruso wanted was for people to have fun while watching it. “I want you to want to get up and dance along with it, and as soon as it ends, you want to watch it again,” she tells EW. Carpenter had the time of her life filming the movie with costars Liza Koshy, Jordan Fisher, Keiynan Lonsdale, and the rest of the crew. “It doesn’t take itself too seriously. We’re very aware of how silly and crazy it all is. It’s definitely lighthearted in a lot of ways. I hope this movie can bring people a little sense of joy right now.” Fisher said, “I just want people to feel good. It’s supposed to make you laugh, shed a tear, and then just get up and dance.”
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And you can’t have a good dance film without a bobbing collection of jams to keep you dancing in your seat! The soundtrack is full of high-energy songs like Big Freedia’s “Rent” and “When I Get Going” by Kallico. On the surface, Work It is easy and fun, but the way the movies uses dance is sweet. “Dance is a universal language,” Terruso says. “It connects us all and it really brings people together in an incredible way. It’s a way to express your identity, your culture, your individuality in this way that’s really unifying. Right now more than ever, we need unifying messages and something that’s going to bring us together when we’re all so separate and quarantined.”
Carpenter herself was surprised by the story’s real-world similarities. “It’s just the fact that nothing is certain and change, although it seems really scary, a lot of the times is what brings you some of the most beautiful accidents you’ll ever experience in your life,” she says. “It’s a bit of a wake-up call to take from this movie that it’s never too late and you’re never too old to start something new and to do something you really love. Life is a long time, and life is about trying things that scare you.”