Shall We Dance (Widescreen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Good Film
Review: This movie is not really bad at all...sort of predictable in my opinion...so you know what is going to happen and why it happened. It was a good natured film, I would recommend it for anyone...even the kids...even though it is a Pg-13 rating, I see no problem with a kid under 13 watching this film, and I am a father of a 9 year old...great choregraphy in the film as well.
Wish I could have seen a better acting performance from J Lo.
Blonde lady in the film is really funny!!!

Rating:
Summary: Worth seeing whether or not you have seen the original
Review: When asked to name the sexiest scene I have ever seen in a movie I usually answer the "Shall We Dance?" sequence from "The King and I." Most people acknowledge that the more you see of two people having sex the less sexier it is. Well, two people fully clothed and dancing is pretty far removed from triple-X nudity sex, but you will not see a more powerful look than the one Yul Brynner gives Deborah Kerr at the end of that dance. You do not have to understand metaphor, but in the 2004 romantic comedy "Shall We Dance" Jennifer Lopez's character explains exactly what is happening during such dances when she calls them "the vertical expression of a horizontal wish." There are few things more elegant and sensual than a dance of seduction.

This being said, it is all the more interesting that "Shall We Dance" is about passion but that it is actually about dancing more than it is about sex. But it certainly plays with our assumption that the two are inexorably connection, whether we pick up that notion from Fred Astaire or "Dirty Dancing." John Clark (Richard Gere) is a lawyer stuck in a routine both at work and at home. He gets from one to the other via the L train and on his way home he see a woman sitting in the window of Miss Mitzi's Dance Studio. He sees her sitting there again and then catches a glimpse of her dancing. The next thing he knows he is getting off the train, walking up the stairs, entering the dance studio and signing up for lessons.

The obvious conclusion is that John is drawn out of his lethargy by this tantalizing woman, whose name is Pauline. This is especially true because Pauline is played by Jennifer Lopez. But even if it takes him a way to come to the realization, John is not there for the woman: he is there for the dancing. His confusion is understandable because it seems everybody at Miss Mitzi's is there under false or at least misguided pretenses. That includes John's classmates, the oversized Vern (Omar Benson Miller) and the homophobic Chic (Bobby Cannavale), and his co-worker, Link (Stanley Tucci) who dons a wig to transform himself into a dancing fool.

With John coming home late every Wednesday, making strange body movements when he thinks he is alone, and having perfume on his shirts, his wife, Beverly (Susan Sarandon) has to face her suspicions and her fears. This involves hiring a sympathetic private detective (Richard Jenkins), who is clearly smitten by the lady, oblivious to his strange non-verbal habits, and impressed by John's secret. Beverly learns her husband's secret and comes to a rather different but actually compelling reaction. Meanwhile, all of the film's plot threads are going to come together at the big ballroom dancing competition that is the big moment but not the film's climax. "Shall We Dance" has more than one of those, which should not be surprising.

The character of Pauline is caught in limbo for most of the film. When we first see her, sitting in the window of the dance studio, she is a silent siren. But when John actually talks to her I was suddenly thinking that she was a Sandra Bullock girl-next-door sort of character. Then she turns cold and distant until we get a quick glimpse of passion when she explains the correct way to dance the Rumba before she shows John how it should be done on the dance floor in the film's hottest "sex" scene.

Director Peter Chelsom (whose 1995 comedy "Funny Bones" takes place largely at Blackpool, the Mecca of Ballroom Dancing) and writer Audrey Wells ("The Truth About Cats and Dogs") had to face the daunting task of coming up with an American (and Americanized) version of the 1996 Japanese film "Shall we dansu?" by writer-director Masayuki Suo, one of the most successful foreign films of relatively recent vintage. I watched the remake last night and the original this morning, and if my preference like so many others is for the Japanese version it has to do with the profoundly different way that culture views ballroom dancing more than anything else. This being said, both films are enjoyable.

But I actually think the remake suffers from the casting of its three stars. It is not surprising that Richard Gere cuts quite a figure on the dance floor, but it seems strange that a woman can resist his charms or that he is leading a life of quite desperation. Jennifer Lopez is so dynamic that you keep thinking her character is slumming by hanging out at Miss Mitzi's Dance Studio. As for Susan Sarandon, it is rather hard to believe she is not more pro-active in dealing with the situation she has discovered. Consequently, I can make the case that the casting is too good for this movie, even though watching Gere dance with his leading ladies are the high points of the film. With Gere as the lead you still end up thinking the rich are getting richer, as opposed to the idea that every worm has its day that you get from the original.

Still, "Shall We Dance" is quite enjoyable, especially if you like your romantic comedies to be cute. This is especially true of the supporting cast of aforementioned characters along with the charming Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), the bombastic Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), and the quotable Scott (Nick Cannon). The story manages to avoid all of the standard scenes we usually get when a husband is not having an affair, and actually comes up with some rather creative responses to the unusual situation. True, these are mostly from Suo's script, but given the proclivity of American studios to stick to conventions being this faithful to the original is a rare treat. Plus, there is all that dancing.