This essay is part of Avidly’s RomCom Superlatives series
Here’s the thing about the “Pamchenko Twist”: it’s impossible. A fantastical ice skating trick at the center of the 1992 RomCom The Cutting Edge, “The idea of the Pamchenko is a girl being swung in a circle, then going up and spinning and then the boy catching her and putting her down.” It sounds amazing. But as very real skater (and Cutting Edge body double) Robert Denton explains, “That’s not physics! You can’t swing somebody in a circle and then all of a sudden get them up in the air and change your trajectory.”[1] Or can you?
It’s precisely the absurdity of the move that makes it such a delightfully overblown metaphor for love in The Cutting Edge’s romance. In this star-crossed story of a hockey player and a figure skater, Douglas Dorsey and Kate Moseley, the Pamchenko Twist manifests the chaotic yet beautiful relationship between the two skaters. Is the move physically impossible? Does gravity itself object to the trajectory of their love? No matter. And no matter that these two people never should work as a figure skating pair; no matter that their personalities are so opposed that bringing them together seems to defy the laws of physics. Love defies all the rules.
When Dorsey and Moseley complete the twist, the audience cheers, and not just for the thrilling sports move. The Pachemko Twist shows us exactly how love wins at the RomCom Olympics: when these two skaters admit their love for one another, they hurl themselves bodily into a different emotio-mechanical universe. And who doesn’t want love that feels, that acts, that defies logic just like that? With such an impressive legacy, the Pamchenko Twist deserves to be recognized as the Most Captivating, Death-Defying, Illogical Way to Show Your Love.
It’s not just the Pamchenko Twist that earns The Cutting Edge its place in the pantheon of romantic comedies. Writer Tony Gilroy and director Paul Michael Glazer amplified the enemies-turned-lovers trope by setting the story within the context of the Olympic Games and infusing it with the power of sport. Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney are both charismatic and winning actors; it’s a pleasure to cheer for them as they mature over the course of the film. By the end, the audience’s desire for the character’s Olympic victory has become completely enmeshed with our hopes for them to finally accept that they are MFEO (or, Made For Each Other, to quote the great Sleepless in Seattle). Compatability? Love? A gold medal? YES.
Here’s the backstory. Kate, a talented but spoiled pairs figure skater from Greenwich, Connecticut, isn’t quite good enough to succeed as an individual skater. But she’s also so prickly she hasn’t found success as part of a pair. Doug comes from the other side of the tracks, but also the other side of the United States. A rising hockey star in Duluth, Minnesota, he suffers a rough hit at the Calgary Olympics in 1988, and loses some of his peripheral vision, preventing any further success in hockey. But he loves to skate. And, underneath her, um, icy veneer, Kate does too. Are they desperate enough to make a go of it together? Of course!
Their pairing is a last resort for both: every professional hockey team in the US and beyond has rejected Doug. The last-possible pairs’ partner for Kate stormed off the ice. But despite their mutual need, the relationship seems like a non-starter. As they first try to skate around the rink together, Doug stumbles because he’s not used to figure skates. Unlike hockey skates, a figure skate’s blade has a serrated toe — a toe pick— to help skaters better stop. For those unfamiliar with it, this toe pick can literally become a major stumbling block. In the most famous montage of the film, Doug falls over and over. “Toe pick!” Kate mockingly proclaims, each and every time.
But Doug’s passion for skating (as well as his machismo) drives him to persist through Kate’s insults, and a narrative soon takes shape. Doug wants to succeed as a figure skater; he hopes to become a refined partner while finding the energy and success of his hockey life. Can Kate accept Doug as a partner — even though it means risking the approval traditional figure skaters receive? Kate, though sometimes reluctantly, embraces the unconventional music and costumes that Doug encourages them to try. Doug helps her find new depths to herself and her skating. Trying to make the Olympic team, they find success at Nationals, only to be seemingly foiled by the judge’s biased and poor scoring (an ongoing issue in real life skating, just think of the pairs’ gold medal judging scandal in Salt Lake City in 2002 for example). But, in one of my very favorite skating errors ever, the team that could have prevented Kate and Doug from making the Olympic team stumbles as the woman skater gets caught in her partner’s lederhosen, therefore allowing for Kate and Doug to become the second qualifying team for the Olympics.
As they find success in their skating, tension appears in their personal relationship. In rapid succession, Kate’s fiancé breaks up with her, drawing her attention to her feelings for her skating partner. Doug then spurs a drunk Kate, only to later sleep with an opposing skater (and new partner of Kate’s ex-partner). The two are at odds, and the coach knows it. He also understands the Russians (and its always the Russians) are the pair to beat at the Olympics. The coach proposes a new and dramatic move, something that has never been done before. Doug calls it the Pamchenko Twist, naming it after the coach. Kate recognizes its impossibility, but once Doug calls her out, making clear that he can do it, she commits to learning it. Yes, this is a metaphor for heterosexuality.
To film the move, the scene required dancers, skaters, and actors to all be urged out of their comfort zones. They used trampolines, rigs, safety mats, and more to be able to capture all the different angles the filmmakers wanted. Significantly, this was, before CGI, and the skating and the stunts were all filmed with real people, which comes through in the film. The audience feels like they are watching real skating at an Olympics competition. And the real bodies on line make it even easier for the audience to want Doug and Kate to win. They were good at nationals, but they were not great and would not be able to win the Olympics without a big move – the Pamchenko. Which makes it all the more frustrating when the pair decided, right after their successful short program at the Olympics, that it’s too risky, they can’t do it as planned in their long program in two days.
Further complicating their skate, Kate decides to retire, an emotional calamity that shocks and dismays Doug and her entire family. It seems like she’s giving up — on the ice, on love, on herself. But Doug won’t accept it. Right before their final skate, Doug declares, “Kate, somewhere in the middle of all of this I fell in love with you. I’m saying I love you. I’m saying it out loud. Don’t say we aren’t right for each other, because the way I see it, we may not be right for anyone else.” Attendants in official green jackets interrupt, trying to push them onto the ice, but Doug is not deterred. He pleads with her, arguing he needs her, and Kate tears up. She declares, “We’re doing the Pamchenko!” He protests, yet they take the ice, continuing to battle about it. Just as they form their starting pose, she ends the debate, proclaiming, “I’m in the mood to kick a little ass.” With small smiles, they start their routine, and the crowd vocally supports them as their edgy rock-type music begins. As the music swells, the magic happens: Doug spins Kate, then throws her into the air and catches her. Massive cheers emerge and American flags wave as the routine ends. After Doug has dipped Kate and they pause for applause, Doug tells her that she didn’t have to do the move. But of course she did, and along with that, she declares her love for him. The movie ends right after Doug reminds her, “Just remember who said it first.”
The Pamchenko Twist connected these two star-crossed lovers, and presumably won them the gold medal (the audience never sees this, but from the crowd cheers and the ground-breaking move, it’s inevitable). The credits roll, a triumphant love song plays, and our couple has now found love together.
The Cutting Edge’s Olympic-level conclusion helps make this movie a perfect example of the RomCom, and one that pushes it to the superlative level. I cannot help but feel that the soul of this movie is pure love – love for skating, for romance, for filmmaking. The movie’s backstory — it’s dedicated to the director’s daughter, who loved ice skating — may be one reason why it’s so convincingly throws its heart into the final, over-the-top trick.[2] The Pamchemko Twist cements the film’s status as emphasizing how passion and love can make the impossible possible, and for that, the film ultimately deserves recognition and remembrance.
Emily L. Newman is presently Professor of Art History in the Department of Liberal Studies at Texas A&M University-Commerce. A Lifetime Television aficionado, Newman specializes in contemporary art, popular culture, gender studies, television studies and has a particular interest in activism, fashion, and art. When not working or teaching, she spends most of her time catering to her tiny rescue dog Fred’s every whim.
[1] Ethan Alter, “How ‘The Cutting Edge’ pulled off the impossible Pamchenko,” February 16 2018, Yahoo! Entertainment, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/cutting-edge-pulled-off-impossible-pamchenko-170130186.html.
[2] The director Paul Michael Glaser, famously Starsky of TV’s “Starsky and Hutch,” made the film with his daughter Ariel in mind, who had loved figure skating and to whom the film is dedicated, along with his wife and son.