Shall We Dance

Rating: 4/10 (29 December 2011)

Whenever I hear this title I first assume that it means the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical, but this one is actually based on the same title as a song featured in The King and I, from director Peter Chelsom (Funny Bones, Serendipity). Basically John Clark (Richard Gere) has a good job as a lawyer, Beverly (Susan Sarandon) as a loving wife and a happy family life, but he seems bored by all of this and fancies something new. He passes it every evening, and sees the same beautiful woman through the window, so he decides one night to enter the place, a dance lessons class, and he signs up hoping to be taught by the woman, Paulina (Jennifer Lopez). He may instead be being taught by the older Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), and he is just as clumsy as other dance students, such as Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Vern (American Pie Presents Band Camp's Omar Benson Miller), and for a while the woman he glanced at doesn't seem interested. After a while John does eventually get to meet Paulina, she only wants to teach dancing not have a date, but they do become good friends, to the point when he has fallen for her. He has been keeping the dance lessons a secret from everyone, all his friends and family, and eventually he has become really enraptured in the dancing as well, he is training for a championship Chicago dance competition. For this John is partnered with dancer Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), and he is against fellow dance student Link (Stanley Tucci), he obviously has Paulina watching from the audience, but he is unaware that Beverly and his daughter Jenna Clark (Tamara Hope) are there as well. This distracts him at the crucial point during the performance, and in the end he decides to quit, but his life returns to a happy normality, Linkn and Bobbie get together, Paulina gets a new dance partner for a Blackpool competition, and John and Beverly enjoy a dance together themselves. Also starring Stark Sands as Evan Clark, Richard Jenkins as Devine, Nick Cannon as Scott, Sarah Lafleur as Carolyn, Onalee Ames as Diane and Diana Salvatore as Tina. Gere is alright being reasonably charming as trying to escape his drab lifestyle, Sarandon doesn't get much to do at all as his wife, and of course Lopez looks gorgeous thrusting her moves and poking her bum out, even though her mood is low most of the time. If you are a fan of dancing films, and specifically ballroom, then I guess this has a fair amount in it to satisfy the eyes, as for the story in between it is lacking in originality, only the dancing is worth watching, otherwise it's probably only worth seeing the once, a slightly lame romantic comedy drama. Okay!