Shall We Dance? - Session Times And Movie Reviews

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Shall We Dance?

Movie Info

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An overworked Chicago accountant, tired of the boring routine that his life has become, sees a beautiful dance teacher through a window and decides to start taking lessons from her in order to get to know her better, and as the joy of dancing enters his life, he discovers that it might be the secret to saving his troubled marriage. As his dancing skills improve, he eventually signs up for the Chicago Crystal Ball Dance Competition. Will he win?

Rated:	[ M ] LOW LEVEL COARSE LANGUAGE
Cinema release:	21 Oct 2004
DVD release:	16 Mar 2005
Director:	Peyer Chelsom
Running time:	106 mins
Stars:	Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter, Richard Jenkins, Ja Rule
Links:	Official Site IMDb Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic

What we say

Shall We Dance?

Kerry Bashford, MovieFix
3 star rating

It's been a long time since we've had a good dance movie. In the early days of MTV that's what passed for a musical. You'd just get some radio friendly disposable hits, some magazine friendly disposable actors and before you can say Dirty Dancing, you have a hit.

Thanks to this limber lineage, this film has a distinctly '80s feel about it. Surprising then that the story is much more contemporary. This is an adaptation of a 1997 Japanese film of the same name in which a middle-aged man (Richard Gere), unhappy in his otherwise happy life, sees a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez) peering out the window from a dance studio and decides to learn how to dance. Although his partner (Susan Sarandon) fears he is having an affair, the experience reconnects him with his wife and his life.

Although it's not entirely a misstep, Shall We Dance fails to really kick off. The direction is rather pedestrian, and both the relationships and the choreography lack the necessary fire and intensity. Most of all it seems to lack motivation. Gere's character is possessed by melancholy he can't understand so it's hard for the audience to fill in the blanks, especially with such a blank performance from Jennifer Lopez as the elusive dancer of his dreams. If only her character was as fleshed out as her leotards. But it's when the film answers the challenge of the title that it unfortunately fails to deliver. The crucial element of dance movies is of course dance itself and this film seems to use the ritual of the dance not so much as spectacle but mere circumstance.

DVD Features

Feature Commentary with Director Peter Chelsom
Featurettes
Music Video

DVD Review

David Marin-Guzman
Movie: 2 star rating

DVD Features: 3.5 star rating

"Shall We Dance?" is so flimsy, its drama so arbitrary, its plot and characters so thin, it's questionable as to whether it's even a movie. A remake of the 1996 Japanese hit by Masayuki Suo, something has been severely lost in the translation. Part of the problem resides in the American context: it's harder to believe that Richard Gere's Average Joe character would keep his dance lessons a secret because it might seem taboo or shameful. In the more rigid, conservative society of Japan, where dancing is viewed as shamefully intimate it might pass, but here it just seems nonsensical.

The rest of the film doesn't fare much better as it strains to follow some semblance of a plot. On the other hand, Gere does have a certain charm and the dancing doesn't disappoint. If only the rest of the film had more of the zest and movement put into the dance numbers.

The DVD contains a long 'making of' that is quite interesting in defending the slim character arcs of Gere's character. A section on the music behind the soundtrack is fairly facetious but concentrates on re-doing old classic tunes with a slight contemporary touch (as seen in the Pussycat Doll's version of "Sway", whose music video is also added to the mix).

The highlight of the DVD is the collection of deleted scenes that play to the film's strengths by showing us more and more fantastic dance sequences. Most notable is the great alternate (and far superior) opening. The film starts with a swirling montage of dancing performed to The GoTan Project's sultry Latino rhythms before gracefully sliding into a far more original and charming introduction of Gere's character (sans narration).

An average director's commentary completes the extra features.

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What you say

Great film
Lovely film

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What you say

Great film

The dancing was great, the story line was pretty good and plausible, but it was still a love story with comedy thrown in.

"Shall We Dance?" is about changing routine, remembering why we are here and why we do some things. It is also about judging others and how your life affects others.

All in all, this is a chick flick with some great dancing and funny parts.

Corina Troy
Southbank, QLD
27 Oct 2004

Lovely film

A delightful movie! There were a lot of laughs, sighs, awwws and even a few tears.

Richard Gere plays a jaded accountant, fed up with being unhappy, but not sure what would make him happy. As his train passes through the city on his way home one evening, he sees a woman standing at the window of a dance studio looking heartbroken. He is somehow moved to get off the train and find her, and in the process he learns that he loves ballroom dancing and the way it makes him feel.

"Shall We Dance" is reminiscent of "An Officer and a Gentleman" towards the end. There were a lot of "awwwww... I wish my husband would do that" sighs from those in the audience. If you liked "Strictly Ballroom" and "Pretty Woman" you'll love this movie.

Bettina
Macksville, NSW
25 Oct 2004