How Can We Not Dance???

Rating: 10/10 (17 October 2004)

I vaguely remember enjoying the Japanese version of this film. However I also remember its limited impact.
Deep breath! My partner had tears in his eyes. People were dancing down the stairs of the stadium style theater at the River in Rancho Mirage. People waited until the very last credit & sound before leaving the theater.
(A problem reviewers who think they're too important to be bothered by audiences face, when they sit in the cold comfort of a studio & couldn't' care less what the average moviegoer thinks.) This film celebrates the joy of music and dancing while it also explores the difficulties of marriage, growing older, and keeping long-term relationships alive.
Some things we expect to happen don't. Something we expect to happen do.
A lonely dancer stares out a dancing school window. An older man, Richard Gere, who's afraid his bones are turning cold looks up & sees her. He comes home to his wife and family. Susan Sarandon who loves him but feels she's being shut out of his life. As Richard Gere comes alive when he finally takes the dancing school plunge, so do we the audience and everyone in the film come alive. Richard is having such a great time learning his ballroom dancing that we can't help but take the ride with him. Problem with this film is the age barrier. I don't think anyone under 40, who is insensitive and filled with the arrogance of youth can really understand how wonderful this film is with its depth of understanding about the human condition and the joy of being filled with music that moves you to movement yourself, and, more importantly, revives your joy of life and living.