Various women dance at the strip club Blue Iguana. Angel (Daryl Hannah) is desperate to adopt. Jo (Jennifer Tilly) is angry, pregnant and wants an abortion. Jasmine (Sandra Oh) is a poetry writer. Club manager Eddie gets star stripper Nico (Kristin Bauer van Straten). Jessie (Charlotte Ayanna) is the new girl. Stormy (Sheila Kelley) is sleeping with her brother.Michael Radford is no drive-by B-movie director. This does have ambition of something more compelling than a simple T&A showcase. He has gathered various stripper stories together. They're fine but I don't find any of them that compelling. The movie feels scattered. I wonder if somebody who actually stripped like Diablo Cody would have more compelling stories. At least, her writing might be more interesting.

I love this movie. I lived this life and there is no movie out there that gives a more accurate glimpse of this than Dancing at the Blue Iguana. Every character was a girl I knew, a girl I was, a girl I danced with, and partied with. Every DJ, club owner/manager, customer.. everything was very well played. I even heard most of it was improv! I don't want to say anymore because I don't want to spoil it, but it really is a true, raw reflection of what the stripper life is like. This film brought back some bitter sweet memories. Every one who has been in this life needs to see it, and anyone who is curious about this life needs to see it. You will not find a more honest film than this. Thank you!

I was expecting much more from this movie, from the cast and the director (I really enjoy Il Postino and The Merchant of Venice). But it's just another boring view at the lives of strippers... in a Hollywood fashion. Each one of the girls is a cliché: the sad one, the silly one, the wild and self-destructive, the woman with a dark past, all of them lacking a real love and a real life...come on, a far more complex point of view could be done. Knowing now that most of the dialogue was improvisational, it's easy to figure it out what was wrong...no script, no story. Near the end, the last character (a porn star on tour, played amazingly by Michelle Bahuer) is a lot credible, but is too late for the movie. The best moment is when Jennifer Tilly, looking for some extra bucks, becomes an S&M dominatrix. Not my kind of kinky stuff, but funny to see! Finally, the music chosen just don't work for strippers, too slow, too sad... like this movie.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT:Dancing At The Blue Iguana is a beautiful melancholy gem of a film. It is a character study of several strippers and what their lives are like both at and outside of, the club. It stars Dary Hanna, Sandra Oh and Jennifer Tilly among others and they all give performances that are haunting, heartfelt and just fantastic. Not only was I very impressed with this movie, I thought it was excellent.Anyone expecting a variation on the movie "Striptease" maybe disappointed. This is a serious movie and while of coarse there are scenes where the girls strip, it's more about what happens in between that time when night falls and dawn breaks, and reality and the day to day struggles of life take over. It is slow moving, pensive and above all human. This movie has more humility in it's first 15 minutes then a movie like Striptease or Showgirls has through the whole thing. It's without a doubt, one of the best character studies I've ever seen.On occasion, when traveling through movie land, there are those occasional movies, (usually indie films though not always) , where you encounter movies that are less concerned with heavy handed theatrics and special effects, and much more interested in bringing you a dose of reality. I found Blue Iguana to be a wonderful haunting tale of life, love, loneliness, pain, and dreams. The whole cast was incredible and nothing, not one thing, ever feels forced. There are moments of surprising comedy such as an unforgettable moment between Hanna's "Angel" and a police officer. The movie is done in rather a fragmented way, there is a constant switching around from one story to the next but I found that appropriate to the movie.I liked, very much how all the girls played their roles, I did have a fondness for Angel, a sweet yet incredibly problematic girl, and Sandra Oh's Jasmine had the best scene in the movie, her "goodbye" dance to her new boyfriend who had not yet seen her dance, was incredibly powerful and flawless, as was the song selection. All performances were great.This is a must see for anyone who likes character studies and likes ones where the makers "keep it real." The only complaint that I have is the rather strange way it ended(and that it ended in two hours-it actually should have been longer) and the subplot involving the contract killer which I cannot decide if I liked or not especially since I still don't fully understand it in it's entirety but other then that, I have no negatives at all. This isn't for everyone, it's slow moving nature may turn some people off, but for those who do like these type of movies, I've no doubt you'll find it an exceptional film. My vote is 9 of 10.