Romy and Michele's High School Reunion - "Time After Time"

If you fall I will catch you and roll you on the floor

My 20th high school reunion was canceled in 2021 thanks to a Covid surge and never rescheduled. I was truly kind of bummed because, yes, I am that person who genuinely wants to see everyone I went to high school with even though my high school experience was not spectacular and was just OK! I want to know what people look like in real life, not filtered on Instagram, and I want to collectively process our decades of aging while drinking one free bottom-shelf cocktail.

But at the same time, I was a little bit relieved, because now I have more time to recruit two more people to learn this entire dance sequence with me before the next reunion:

The basic gist of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is that two besties (played perfectly by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow) feel ill-prepared for their 10-year reunion and so create a whole story about being ~important businesswomen~ to impress everyone who used to make fun of them. Inevitably, they must drop their facades and learn to embrace their true selves (along with their friend Sandy, played by Alan Cumming¹), which is where this dance comes in. It is the perfect movie for any season, but especially for a gray January day when you need something pastel and ridiculous.

This dance is so iconic that it’s another post where I want to screenshot every dang moment. I will try very hard to stick to the highlights.

First of all, the outfits are terrific. Maybe it’s just because I recently rewatched Barbie, but these dresses feel like human-sized Barbie dresses. As in: super short, possibly made of plastic, likely flammable. Every outfit that Romy and Michele wear in this movie is superb, but these dresses are perfect and an especially bold choice for this interpretive ballet.

Also: I always wondered if this was supposed to be a Star Trek symbol on Romy’s dress and according to IMDB, that’s why Miro Sorvino chose it!!

Miro Sorvino, secret Trekkie!

We start with this perfect opening pose, which is like a tableau from a Greek tragedy:

It’s basically a Renaissance painting

It’s fitting because then Romy and Michele briefly die until Sandy revives them:

Revived by the power of dance

And then they are so happy to be alive that they all spin around and look directly into the camera, which I love so so so much and feels like the essence of friendship expressed through dance:

Perfection

Then comes the most incredible sequence of pure commitment, which if you use the video linked above, is basically every moment from 1:25 to 1:50.

First a little gymnastics:

Would take this yoga class

Then a very literal “if you fall I will catch you,” in which Michele delicately catches Sandy and then leaves him on the floor:

Hope that floor is clean

And then they roll Sandy over to this position where he is doing… a sculptural dead bug kind of thing? An ab workout? While Romy and Michele spin around him?? It is ART:

Incredible ab strength

And then, like a perfect circle, we end in another lovely tableau, where everyone is a little bit happier, having found their true selves:

Now they are grown ups

And then all their old classmates watching them APPLAUD! Can you imagine?? Of course it is my dream for everyone to applaud as soon as I walk into the room at my high school reunion, but after I’ve poured my heart into an interpretive dance while wearing plastic dress? What a treat. It’s nice that this movie was made before everyone had a camera in a phone in their pocket. At a reunion today, everyone would be filming this and immediately uploading it to the world, but here they are experiencing it in its pure state, knowing that what they’ve witnessed is a special thing that they can never see again. (Except that it’s actually a movie that we can watch as many times as we want, until the internet melts.)

According to my research, at the time of filming, Mira Sorvino was a trained dancer, and Lisa Kudrow was not,² but both of them are still killing it. Yes, Mira is doing some more technical spins and jumps, but Lisa is giving it all of her passion. The two of of them, along with Alan Cumming, all blend together so well. I was reading this Bustle article about the dance, which summarizes it perfectly: "It’s not so over-the-top perfect, but it has a level of skill that’s hilarious.” This is also how I want someone to someday describe my own dancing: imperfect but laughably skillful.

Romy and Michele (and Sandy) are attending their 10 year reunion, so are still in their tender late 20s and very agile. If I don’t have another reunion until 2031, I will be 48 and surely my knees and shoulders will already be mad at me for my decades of carrying overstuffed tote bags up and down subway stairs. But I could still learn this, right? I’m not quite ready to crush this dream. Who want to be my Michele and my Sandy (I’m clearly a Romy)??

I already have something more Valentine’s-Day-appropriate cooked up for February, but I just realized that post will drop way after Valentine’s Day, oops. So consider this your early Galentine’s Day love note instead. Grab your Romy, or your Michele, and your Sandy, and tell them how much you love and appreciate them. Then spin around and create a beautiful friendship tableau and send me a photo.

Love you! See you next month!

Love and jazz hands,
Molly

1. Who, by the way, hosts a Romy and Michele themed afternoon dance party at his East Village club every Saturday!!

2. To which I say: are you sure??