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Hilary Duff is going to live forever. She's gonna learn how to fly. High. At least that's the impression we get from previews for Raise Your Voice (PG), a West Coast version of 1980s hit New York musical Fame.
Duff plays Terri Fletcher, a small-town girl enrolled in a Los Angeles summer school for the performing arts. Sort of like Lizzie McGuire in La-La Land except for a harsh touch of pathos: Terri is grieving over her brother's recent death in an automobile crash. That kind of plot device doesn't play well on the Disney Channel.
Terri will fall in love with a cute guy (Oliver James), receive sage advice from her music teacher (John Corbett, Raising Helen), and have plenty of singing opportunities; otherwise, the title wouldn't make much sense.
Raise Your Voice has a Tampa Bay connection: One of Terri's classmates, Robin, is played by Tampa native Lauren Mayhew, 19, in her movie debut. Mayhew's television credits include roles on American Dreams (starring another Tampa native, Brittany Snow) and The Guiding Light, and she was a member of the singing group PYT that released a CD and toured with Destiny's Child and Britney Spears.
An interview with Mayhew and a review of Raise Your Voice were published Monday in the Xpress section of the St. Petersburg Times and can be found online at www.sptimes.com/links. Teen film critic Billy Norris gave the film a C+, writing that "tweens and young teens will be delighted, but that's about it."