365 Days. 365 Films.

Burlesque is a film in the same family as Coyote Ugly about a small town girl named Ali (Christina Aguilera) who goes to L.A. in search of fame and fortune. On arrival she stumbles across a night club called Burlesque owned by Tess (Cher) and offers to work as a waitress for free until she gets her chance at an audition.
Obviously everything goes well and she wows everyone at the audition as a dancer until one of her rival dancers decides to unplug the stereo, revealing that they are actually miming all the words. Again, quite predictably, Ali saves the day by belting out the song and everyone has a great time…

The story is centred mostly around a shadowed and dull love affair between Ali and one of the waiters who works at Burlesque, but the real story revolves around Tess and her inability to pay her bills, threatening the closure of her club.

Antin’s direction is somewhat flawed in his ripping of everything Cabaret and Chigaco (both of which are far better films than this) and some of the acting is touch and go, which I wish I could say about Aguilera, but unfortunately she was surprisingly good.

The verdict is that it’s not an amazing film, which no one expected, but Christina Aguilera’s voice is amazing in it, as was to be expected. Nothing to make a song and dance about though…