Feel the Beat

April is a dancer whose Broadway ambitions have not worked out, so she goes back to her small Wisconsin hometown and moves in with her father. She avoids the people she grew up with, including her first love Nick, because coming home feels like an admission of failure. Her former dance teacher then asks her to take charge of a group of young dancers and prepare them for a major competition. April sees a way to use the job as a route back to New York, though her time with the girls gradually changes what she wants.

Feel the Beat is a 2020 comedy-drama directed by Elissa Down, her first feature, followed by two Ivy + Bean films in 2022. Shawn Ku and Michael Armbruster wrote the screenplay, and Susan Cartsonis produced. Sofia Carson plays April, with Wolfgang Novogratz as Nick, Donna Lynne Champlin as Barb, Enrico Colantoni as Frank, Dennis Andres as Coach Buzz and Rex Lee as Wellington Wong among a credited cast of 35. It runs 107 minutes.

The film has a mixed reception among viewers: on IMDb it holds 6.3 out of 10 from around 15,000 votes, while on TMDB it averages 7.5 out of 10 from a much smaller group of 1,181 votes.