Plot Summary (Footloose) Footloose

Ren McCormack arrives in a town that has outlawed dancing

Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon), a Chicago teenager, moves with his mother Ethel to the small Midwestern town of Bomont after his father walks out on the family. On his first Sunday he meets Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow), the town's spiritual and political center of gravity, and Shaw's wife Vi (Dianne Wiest) and daughter Ariel (Lori Singer).^b2 At a burger joint after school, Ren learns the rule that organizes the place: dancing and rock music are illegal in Bomont.^b8 Five years earlier, a group of high-school students were killed in a car wreck driving home from an out-of-town dance.^{b8 b21} One of the dead was Bobby Moore — the reverend's son. Shaw led the council to pass the ordinance and has held the line ever since.^b21

Ren's defiance puts him on a collision course with the reverend

Ren wears a tie to school, plays his cassettes loud, and gets pulled over for it.^{b6 b9} He befriends Willard Hewitt (Chris Penn), a slow-talking farm kid who can't dance, and Rusty (Sarah Jessica Parker), Willard's girlfriend.^{b7 b20} Ariel — chafing under her father's rule — gravitates to Ren, breaking off her relationship with the local bully Chuck Cranston.¹ After a chicken race on tractors at the Beamis Mill leaves Chuck in the ditch, Ren is the school hero and Ariel's official boyfriend.^2b14 Shaw watches all of this with a tightening jaw.

Ren proposes a senior prom and the council says no

Ren announces to his friends that the senior class should petition for a prom — a dance, in Bomont, sanctioned by the town.^b18 Ariel digs up a Bible passage about a "time to dance."³ Ren teaches Willard to dance in a warehouse.^b25 Then he stands at the lectern at the town council meeting and reads scripture against scripture: David danced before the Lord, the Psalmist commanded praise with timbrel and dance, Ecclesiastes set "a time to mourn, and a time to dance."^b32 The council votes the proposal down anyway. Walking out of the building, Ren has lost the formal argument.^{b32 b33}

Ariel confronts her father and Shaw confronts himself

Ariel comes home bruised — Chuck has beaten her — and forces a confrontation with Shaw at the dinner table: "I'm not even a virgin."^{4b27 b34} Shaw raises his hand to strike her and stops.⁵ Vi tells him, gently, that he is so afraid of losing his daughter that he has already lost her.^{b22 b28} Shaw drives to the church late at night, finds his congregation already there pulling books from the school library to burn in the parking lot, and orders them to stop.^6b35 Whatever the law says, this isn't what he wanted.

The dance happens at a flour mill across the county line

Ren routes around the council. The senior prom is held at a flour mill outside the Bomont town limits, in a neighboring jurisdiction where the ordinance does not apply.^{b33 b39} Shaw delivers a Sunday sermon that effectively releases the kids — he tells the congregation he's been holding too tight, asks for their prayers — and stands on the road outside the mill with Vi as the dance begins.^{b37 b39} Chuck and his cronies arrive looking for a fight. Ren and Willard handle them in the parking lot.^7b40 Inside, Ren calls out "Let's dance!" and the warehouse erupts.^b40