Shag

An utterly pleasant surprise...Lordy, is it tenderly acted, with an unyielding spine of honesty to all its characters. Read full review

It has a charm based on its innocence, its conviction, its pre-Beatles soundtrack and the big 1950s cars the kids drive around in. Read full review

As for Fonda, the camera certainly loves her (to quote a famous line by Howard Hawks), but an actor needs a part that will make her a star, and few films since Shag have seen fit to play to her strengths, specifically that perky blond American sass of hers that found perfect expression here. Read full review

The adolescent antics may be familiar, but Barron directs with affection both for her characters and for back-combing and boned underskirts; her young professionals turn in appropriately corny performances; and the soundtrack is a corker. Read full review

Director Zelda Barron has a real affection for her characters, enabling them to retain a sweet dignity even under some excessive circumstances dictated by the unimaginative, slight script. Read full review

If Shag had been a music marketing ploy like Dirty Dancing or Salsa, the shagging would have come every 10 minutes. Here the dance accompanies something better: a pleasant story about appealing characters. [21 July 1989, p.5]

SHAG has a good cast with a lot of interesting family connections, but unfortunately it doesn't have much of a script, and Zelda Barron's direction lacks zip. The result is a ''teen-age girls coming of age'' flick that is considerably less successful than ''Mystic Pizza,'' ''Dirty Dancing'' or ''My American Cousin,'' the three good little films that pretty much established this post-feminist genre. [25 July 1989, p.3D]

Shag bounces through elements of farce and satire, music and romance without straining too hard and with a few more laughs than one would expect from a picture that seems patched together from such a wide variety of genre films. Like a perfect Southern belle, Shag is smarter and funnier than you expect it to be, but never smarter and funnier than it has to be.[21 July 1989]

Easily the best thing about Shag: The Movie is its soundtrack, which combines newer music with such golden oldies as ''Easier Said Than Done,'' ''Up on the Roof'' and the ever-weird ''Alley Oop.'' These tunes (some of which are performed by the 15-member Voltage Brothers) do a lot to keep the mood light and to cover the lapses in the narrative, of which, you can be sure, there are more than a few. Read full review

As a dance flick, Shag suffers from an unexciting dance-style and so-so choreography but compensates with a fine young cast and likable story. Read full review

A sweet, gentle film with a personality problem. The problem is that it hasn't got enough personality to keep from being overwhelmed by the echoes of other films it evokes. [21 July 1989, p.21]

Shag still has its pleasures, though they're mostly among the casting. Annabeth Gish, as the shy Pudge, remains one of the most refreshingly natural performers in American films; a master of understatement, she scales down her gestures and reactions in a way that draws the camera to her, never asking for attention but quietly commanding it. [21 July 1989, p.A]

Long before the film is over, one is left frustratedly grasping after characters and an ambiance that have evaporated into formulaic freneticism. Read full review

There's some likable energy to the performances and a strong soundtrack, but the lack of sustained dancing make this more of a nostalgic fantasy than a proper musical, whereas 'Shagging' itself seems far too complicated to catch on. Read full review

The picture is heartfelt and naive in ways that seem totally secondhand. The questions it asks -- This boy or that boy? Should I or shouldn't I? -- have been played out in countless other coming-of-age films, from "Where the Boys Are" to "Dirty Dancing." And though the palpable enthusiasm of its creators carries you further into the film, and further into the lives of the four friends than you might otherwise go, it is eventually replaced with a sense of weariness at the worn-thin material. Read full review