Rekindling the fire in a marriage

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2005)

Shall we dance is one of the most romantic movies I have seen in recent times. The movie stars Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez.
The movie opens with a narration from John Clark (Richard Gere), a busy attorney in the "Big Apple". He is content with his life. He is happily married to Beverly Clark (Susan Sarandon), a fashion designer, for 19 years. The couple is blessed with two kids who are in their teens. John Clark is so content and happy with his life that on his birthday when his wife asks him to name something that he wants that "comes in a box" - He says that he is so happy that he cannot think of anything else! The uneventful and content life of this busy attorney takes a turn when by accident he chances upon seeing a beautiful woman with an expression less face (Jennifer Lopez who plays Paulina) from the window of a train and enrolls himself in a dance school hoping to meet her! There he meets two other people - an overweight colored man, who is looking to master a few moves to impress his girl friend before he actually proposes to her and a gay man. There John Clark finds that his teacher is Miss Mitzy and not Paulina! At first John is clumsy and so are his batch mates. When he tries to break into a conversation with Paulina - she cuts him off saying that he should be more serious about dancing and if he has enrolled there looking for a date, he has come to the wrong place. This icy comment makes John only more determined about learning how to dance and he along with other members enroll for a dance competition. Paulina and Miss Mitzy train them to dance. John starts spending more time on the dance floor. Beverly grows suspicious. She employs a private detective to know what John is up-to. What the detective finds out baffles her wildest imagination. Finally on the D-day John sets his foot on the dance floor for the competition and Beverly and his teenage daughter are there to watch him. On seeing them John loses his balance and he loses the competition. In the final moments Paulina gets her groove back and wants to leave for London to continue her career. She asks for one final audience with John - "Shall we dance Mr. Clark?". Whether he accepts her invite or not forms the rest of the story. At the end Beverly discovers "something" that her husband wants "that comes in a box". The flame in the relationship between Beverly and John rekindles. The movie is romantic and the way it unfolds on the screen is simply superb. There are certain cracker of a dialogs like "Why do people marry? - Your life will not go unnoticed - Because I will notice. Your life will not be unwitnessed - I will be the witness to your life. We marry because we need a witness to our lives" There is one more from John saying "You gave me so much - that I felt guilty to tell you that I wanted to find happiness elsewhere - that I enrolled myself in a dancing class" Richard Gere is perfect, Susan Sarandon looks great and Jennifer Lopez gives a controlled performance in this romantic comedy of the year!