The Unseen Movie Review

Shall we Dance

This is a remake of a 1996 Japanese film which hardly anyone will have seen, but which was rather good as romantic comedies go, focusing on the need of straightjacketed businessmen to rebel against the regimentation of Japanese daily life, albeit only through dancing. For the Americanised version, a middle aged suburban lawyer (Richard Gere) is having a bit of a mid-life crisis - not quite as insightful or broad in scope as the Japanese take, it must be said. Despite being nicely content in his marriage (the wife played by the still gorgeous Susan Sarandon), something seems to be missing, and only ballroom dancing lessons can satisfy him. Oh, the fact that his teacher looks like Jennifer Lopez probably helps a bit too.

Boosting the relatively basic storyline with big names is probably giving the fairly unimaginative plot and unsubtle script more than it deserves, but then with this kind of largely heartwarming tale, complexity and delicacy of touch are rarely warranted. The point here is for Gere to look manly, Lopez to look sexy, and both of them to dance well. To be fair, they manage this pretty effectively. It does exactly what is says on the tin.

Whether, since his turn in Chicago, this will prove to be Richard Gere’s new career path remains to be seen, but this is the first film he’s done since that popular musical, and once again he’s showing off his fancy footwork while trying to flirt with (though not necessarily actually seduce) women somewhat younger than himself. In Chicago it was Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger, this time it’s J-Lo.

All that really matters, however, is whether they can both dance – and that they certainly can, even if Gere is looking a tad podgy these days – and whether it’s a nice, fluffy tale of human nature and decency winning out over adversity of some kind. Not that the adversity here is that great – the guy is basically just a bit bored – but still.

Sadly Susan Sarandon is utterly wasted in this film as the doting but worried wife who suspects an affair. Presumably they just offered her such a vast amount of money that she couldn’t turn it down. Her basic role is to look a tad upset most of the time while Gere’s off prancing about the place with Lopez and the other denizens of her dance studio.

Naturally enough, as one of those soppy, supposedly life-affirming pieces of dross Hollywood often churns out, everything works out fine in the end – that much is obvious from the trailer, let alone the film itself. And this is precisely the sort of film which is only likely to be watched by people who already know how it ends.

Bland romantic comedies like this remain perennially popular, and it is nearly impossible for those who don’t like them to work out why. It’s not that they, or indeed this film, is necessarily “bad”. It’s just got so few surprises in that it seems to resemble Gere’s mind-numbing life at the start of the movie. Perhaps you’d be better off taking a leaf out of his book and going to a dance class instead.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM