Shall We Dance

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I’m not a great fan of baseball or dance movies. Baseball films are generally about as exhilarating as a round of mid-day golf in Phoenix in the summer. And dance? Well, I can’t dance so why would I pay good money to sit in a dark theater and watch other people dance? Those were my thoughts before walking into the Starport, early Friday afternoon, to watch Shall We Dance. Later, on my way out of the theater, I shuffled to the left, shuffled to the right, threw my hands in the air and shook my booty. Not a scene you want to contemplate.

Originally produced in Japan and released 1996 under the title of Shall We Dansu? this American remake is the story of a man who lives a life of quiet desperation. Happily married John Clark (Richard Gere) won’t admit that his life has become a vast plain of sameness; a place where nothing much happens. Each morning he goes to his job, each evening he returns to his lovely wife (Susan Sarandon) and his two great kids. A life to be envied, but is that it then? Is that all there is?

One evening, on the commuter train home John looks up at a passing building and sees a sign advertising a dance studio, above the sign a woman stares out of a window; a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez). Several nights later John decides to investigate the dance studio. Before he knows it he has signed up for Ballroom Dance lessons, and his life is now forever changed. Happy ending? Not exactly, for the one thing John doesn’t do is tell his wife that he has enrolled in dance lessons. Soon he is dancing in secret; around the house, in his office, at the studio, after work. Well, what’s a woman to think when all of a sudden her mundane, rather placid husband begins to smile and appear as if he’s happier than he’s ever been?

The movie takes a short detour to a private investigator where Sarandon is told her husband is not having an affair of the heart but of the feet. This in place, the film moves on to dance and the spine of the film, the discovery that John is making about himself; he loves to dance. Initially, John signs up for the lessons to meet Lopez, but she soon makes it clear that her love – first and last – is dance.

Movie purist are already knocking this film because it doesn’t meet the mark of its Japanese counterpart. I saw the original and in a sense they’re right, but this isn’t a competition and Shall We Dance was made for the American Market. The original was interesting because it brought to light the desperate lives of men who endure the rigid social/business order of Japan. But, our own culture can be no less mind numbing, and Gere does a wonderful job carrying out this sense social/business dehumanization. While Gere and Sarandon don’t generate enormous chemistry, what they have is more organic; the ability of fine actors to portray their characters well. As a whole piece this film will never rank an Oscar, but with great choreography, some fall-outa-yer-seat comedy and a fine cast (Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter) this is a film worth seeing. PS - For the one dance scene between Gere and Lopez .... make sure you have plenty of ice in your drink.