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SHALL WE DANCE (2004)
One of the more pleasant surprises I've had at the movies lately was 2004's Shall We Dance. Not to be confused with the old Astaire/Rogers musical, this film is labeled as a romantic comedy, but the film reminded more of films like Footloose and Billy Elliott as a celebration of the passion that dance can ignite in a person, aided by sparkling direction and mad star power.
Fresh off his Golden Globe winning song and dance turn in Chicago, Richard Gere plays John Clark, a married Chicago attorney and father of two, who is entranced by a young woman (Jennifer Lopez) he sees looking pensively out of a window on the second floor of a dance studio that his commuter train passes every day. After catching her at the window twice, he impulsively gets off the train the third day and signs up for dance lessons and though the woman he saw only teaches advanced students, John finds a passion for ballroom dancing that he had no idea was inside him but is also afraid to tell his wife (Susan Sarandon) about it.
The screenplay here is alternately imaginative and a little safe...we are expecting a passionate affair between John and Paulina, Lopez' character but we get something a little different. We're expecting a romantic triangle and what we get is a look at the passion of dance and how it can bring some people together and build walls between others. There is a lovely subplot involving a co-worker of John's named Linc, brilliantly played by Stanley Tucci, who loves ballroom dancing but feels the need to keep it a secret from everyone he knows, going to elaborate lengths, including outrageous disguises and toupees in order to keep his secret. Unfortunately, it is John's inability to be honest with his wife about his new passion that almost destroys his marriage. I thought it was an interesting story move when John's wife hires a detective (Richard Jenkins) to find out what her husband is up to and when she learns he's not having an affair, chooses to let John have his secret instead of asking to share in it.
Of course, there is some wonderful dancing here and Gere had already proven his ability to command a dance floor in Chicago, but it is this lovely character that Gere creates that is really the star attraction here...Gere has rarely been so utterly charming onscreen and the steamy tango he does with Lopez about halfway through the film in a dark empty dance studio is definitely the film's high point. Sarandon brings a richness to the role of John's wife that isn't in the script, Bobby Cannavale is amusing as a fellow dance student who thinks learning to dance will make him a babe magnet and Tucci steals every scene he is in. And if they don't blink, fans of "Dancing with the Stars" will catch cameos by two pros from that show, Karina Smirnoff and Tony Davoloni. It's nothing earth-shattering, but the film is richly entertaining and, if caught in the right mood, could ignite a tear duct or two.
One of the more pleasant surprises I've had at the movies lately was 2004's Shall We Dance. Not to be confused with the old Astaire/Rogers musical, this film is labeled as a romantic comedy, but the film reminded more of films like Footloose and Billy Elliott as a celebration of the passion that dance can ignite in a person, aided by sparkling direction and mad star power.
Fresh off his Golden Globe winning song and dance turn in Chicago, Richard Gere plays John Clark, a married Chicago attorney and father of two, who is entranced by a young woman (Jennifer Lopez) he sees looking pensively out of a window on the second floor of a dance studio that his commuter train passes every day. After catching her at the window twice, he impulsively gets off the train the third day and signs up for dance lessons and though the woman he saw only teaches advanced students, John finds a passion for ballroom dancing that he had no idea was inside him but is also afraid to tell his wife (Susan Sarandon) about it.
The screenplay here is alternately imaginative and a little safe...we are expecting a passionate affair between John and Paulina, Lopez' character but we get something a little different. We're expecting a romantic triangle and what we get is a look at the passion of dance and how it can bring some people together and build walls between others. There is a lovely subplot involving a co-worker of John's named Linc, brilliantly played by Stanley Tucci, who loves ballroom dancing but feels the need to keep it a secret from everyone he knows, going to elaborate lengths, including outrageous disguises and toupees in order to keep his secret. Unfortunately, it is John's inability to be honest with his wife about his new passion that almost destroys his marriage. I thought it was an interesting story move when John's wife hires a detective (Richard Jenkins) to find out what her husband is up to and when she learns he's not having an affair, chooses to let John have his secret instead of asking to share in it.
Of course, there is some wonderful dancing here and Gere had already proven his ability to command a dance floor in Chicago, but it is this lovely character that Gere creates that is really the star attraction here...Gere has rarely been so utterly charming onscreen and the steamy tango he does with Lopez about halfway through the film in a dark empty dance studio is definitely the film's high point. Sarandon brings a richness to the role of John's wife that isn't in the script, Bobby Cannavale is amusing as a fellow dance student who thinks learning to dance will make him a babe magnet and Tucci steals every scene he is in. And if they don't blink, fans of "Dancing with the Stars" will catch cameos by two pros from that show, Karina Smirnoff and Tony Davoloni. It's nothing earth-shattering, but the film is richly entertaining and, if caught in the right mood, could ignite a tear duct or two.