How She Move (2008)

Image credit: Sophie Giraud

HOW SHE MOVE Rutina Wesley seeks upward mobility through dance

She move good! The specificity of Caribbean-Canadian life in a low-income, multiethnic Toronto neighborhood gives How She Move, a pleasantly conventional story of striving and step dancing, its flavor. Plus, the moves — more gymnastically hybrid than those in Stomp the Yard — are fierce, especially as set to a pounding soundtrack by Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes, among others. Rutina Wesley glowers with just the right touch of sweetness as a brainy student (and stellar after-school stepper) who needs to learn how to honor her old hood even as she studies hard to move on out. B+