The Survival of Dana
May. 29,1979High school student Dana moves to the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles after her North Dakota parents get divorced and falls in with the wrong crowd.
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Reviews
How sad is this?
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
I get the feeling now and then of having to stay up wide awake late at night, watching these forgotten little movies. SURVIVAL OF DANA is noted for Judge "VICE VERSA" Reinhold's first movie appearance. That doesn't mean anything, because what this little lost made-for-TV movie tells is the story of a girl named Dana, who wants to make the figure skating team. Things suddenly go downhill for Dana, and the movie to go along with it. Without keeping up with the point of the story, it becomes ordinary juvenile delinquent fodder. I'm sitting through some events deemed too unnecessary, just to find an ending that would solve all of its problems. It may call for some reliable entertainment during the sleepless hours, but all it needed was some sticking to the point on Dana. A reasonable acting job is a crying shame for a potentially good effort thrown into the wastebasket. I can't blame a single soul who is looking for late-night matinees on a tight budget, but this'll do. Any movie with a well-known actor's debut is right on the money during a clearance sale. After that, you wished you hadn't felt so disappointed.