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]