Mum's Monday: Grease

Iconic; this film is still popular today, people are still singing along to the songs and the characters are as well-known as they were when this film came out.

You hear of people who have got married, that were high school sweethearts. This film is the journey of two very different characters, Danny (John Travolta) a leather clad bad boy and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) a pure good girl. The film proves opposites attract and true love will break all barriers in the end.

Rizzo (Stockard Channing) was mean resulting in Danny hurting Sandy when they meet up again unexpectedly at school (Rydell High). This is not nice to watch but Danny has a bit off growing up still to do. None of the others can see the journey the two characters are taking throughout the film, the look on Danny’s face after he hurt Sandy and although Sandy is out of her comfort zone at Frenchie’s (Didi Conn) sleep over, everyone is friendly towards her despite the song. The scenes are well done showing a typical teens sleepover. Sandy secretly sings the song ‘Hopelessly Devoted to you’.

During this journey, Sandy, thinking Danny is not interested or not worth it, meets someone else and makes Danny jealous to try and impress her, he meets up with Coach Calhourn (Sid Caesar) and this makes for some funny scenes with him trying to masters some sports.  

When Danny and Sandy finally get together, the others don’t give them the privacy. I could see watching it the relationship is real, but the others are still catching up. This isn’t a bad thing as it does capture the essence of teenage life which is well done.

One of the highlights of the film and the school year is when ‘National Bandstand’ arrives to do a live broadcast of a dance competition. It is fun to watch, where you have students putting alcohol in the punch, Marty (Dinah Manoff) flirting with the host and 3 of the students mooning the camera live on TV.

After all this fun and hi-jinks reality hits Rizzo, Sandy is there and offers support and it is nice to see Rizzo thank her.

At the end I questioned whether Danny and Sandy should’ve changed for each other but after analysing their relationship, the answer was simple: they hadn’t. They were who they are all along, it was just all hidden. Danny and Rizzo experienced the most character development throughout the film, whereas Sandy found more confidence in herself, resulting in a heart-warming ending.

Long may we sing along to the songs and enjoy the journey to the destination.