Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Director: John Badham
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A disco movie for people who don't go to discos, this is really about Growing Up - which the movie interprets as Growing Out of a Disco Mentality and into Personal Relationships. The relationship between Tony (Travolta) and Stephanie (Gorney) is at least as angst-ridden as anything in Annie Hall, but like almost everything else in the movie, it's played dead straight. This, of course, makes it extremely funny, up to a point, though in the end the real killer is the movie's abject sincerity. Pity, really, since there's certainly room for at least one decent movie about the actual appeal and experience of discos. The only true drug culture of the '70s, they deserve better than to be represented as watering-holes for arrested adolescents.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: John Badham
Producer: Robert Stigwood
Cast: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Barry Miller, Joseph Cali, Paul Pape, Donna Pescow, Julie Bovasso full cast
Duration: 119 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.











What do you think?
Post your review now