 I changed it to Lemont, a suburb of Chicago. In an early scene, Sara and a friend are talking in the hallway of her old school. The sign behind them says "Lemont." Later, we are shown a scene of downtown Lemont, IL, where her mom has a flower shop. There is a train running from Lemont to Chicago, consistent with how Sara goes to see her dad. (My mother-in-law lives in Lemont, IL, and I can confirm the shot of downtown Lemont. It s a middle- to upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago). With her dreams of becoming a professional ballerina decimated by the accidental death of her mother, Sara Johnson (Stiles) is forced to move from Lemont, a quiet Chicago suburb, to her father s ghetto apartment on Chicago s gritty south side. The stark urban environment s contrast of race and class compound Sara s loss and her misplaced guilt, which are both exacerbated by the fact that her mother had been en route to her dance performance at the time of her death. But when she meets Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), a popular black student with a passion for hip hop and a future brighter than his troubled past, her repressed ambition and sorrow are released through a revitalized interest in the cathartic and expressive power of dance.