Should be called "Silly Dunce"

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2004)

In "A Gift from the Sea", Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote, "A good relationship has a pattern like a dance ... There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing."
If only the screenwriter of "Shall We Dance?" had heeded this sage advice! This American remake might then have maintained the grace, charm and delicacy of the Japanese original.
Alas, instead we have the "heavy hand" clobbering the audience over the head with the clumsiest lack of subtlety, the broadest stereotypes, a lackluster script and -- as a result -- a singular lack of true-to-life characters that we feel for and care about, a woeful absence of on-screen chemistry among the principals, let alone the bit players.
Stanley Tucci should sue his agent for landing him the part of Linc, the bald solicitor who expresses his "true" inner self by donning a wig worthy of Tiny Tim and gaudy satin tights like some flamboyant superhero. His desire to dance and be himself is cruelly ridiculed by co-workers imbued with American culture's narrowly defined notions of masculinity.
Bobby Cannavale should be shot for accepting a role where (yet another) character "plays it straight" until the final reel. His smouldering sensuality panders to gay male desire, yet frustrates any possibility of identification with the object of desire.
The only moment of truth, the "one true thing" in this film, is a speech by Susan Sarandon about the purpose of marriage. We all need "a witness to our lives", she says.
It's too bad that "Shall We Dance?" fails to witness the lives of gay men who are obliged to pass for straight, and straight men who are unfairly branded as gay.
This film should have been called "Silly Dunce". That title would bear witness to the witlessness of the writer who spawned this awful film.