Review: Xanadu

Dir. Robert Greenwald (1980)

The following review contains minor spoilers.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time so of course I’m going to say yes. Obviously I'm biased. I love this film for what I see as it’s qualities but I also love Xanadu for its numerous flaws. I’ll present both sides so you can make that call on your own!

Xanadu is an Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly musical that was made between 1979 and 1980 and it is painfully apparent throughout the entire film. This film really focuses on what it assumes the 1980s will become, while of course not knowing the future, as the eighties had only just begun when the film came out. The resulting mess is a whirlwind of sound, color, and aesthetic styling overloading a very thin plot.

An artist has a dream of opening a disco-roller rink/bar. He is visited by an incarnation of a Muse from Greek mythology who offers to help him in his quest as well as receiving aid from Gene Kelly. Things get complicated when the artist falls in love with the muse, who is herself ageless and above humanity in nature. You’re not going to get much more in terms of character and story from this movie.

This very dated, flawed film is full of plot holes and seems only passingly interested in it’s own characters, but hey, the visuals are insane and the soundtrack is killer. In my view, the music really makes this movie. Because of the musical artists that were a part of this film (ELO, Gene Kelly, Cliff Richard, and the Tubes) Xanadu has a lot of strong and entertaining music to carry the viewer through the film where they otherwise would probably be lost or bored. The many flaws of this movie aren't as important to me personally as I watch Xanadu because of how entertaining and enjoyable the music and the musical scenes are. Honestly, this is less of a movie, and more of a bunch of music videos woven together by very thin thread.

The numerous plot issues, editing quirks, and dramatic overacting all combine to form an oddly engaging whole. For example, there’s a traditionally animated sequence which cuts into the movie with no real explanation. Our main characters are now cartoons in a trippy music video. Then the sequence ends and we’re back in the live action movie, it’s never explained and the movie moves on without missing a beat.

An aura of “what the fresh glitter am I watching” hangs over the entire movie, a battered VHS tape caked with LSD and hairspray. If you’re the right kind of person, Xanadu’s dopey sense of endearing silliness, high energy commitment to glitz, and complete lack of interest in moving it’s own plot along may make it the perfect rainy-day movie for brightening your world.

In my opinion, Xanadu doesn’t work as a movie, but as a trippy, insane, musical experience...it kind of soars!

At least, it soars for a very specific kind of person. I do think you have to enjoy a select few topics to get the most from this movie. If you like musicals, 70 disco, 80s rock, vague Greek mythology, and “so-bad-it’s-good” style films, Xanadu may be your dream come true. For literally anyone else though, sitting through Xanadu might just be a chore.

-Katie Rose Witherell