Shall We Dance? film review

certificate_12A

SHALL WE DANCE?

The original Japanese version was one of the most beloved and successful films of 1996 both in Japan, where it won no less than 13 Japanese Academy Awards, and around the world. In other words it was ripe for a Hollywood remake. And while the shift of cultures has effectively undermined the film's essential premise, the story retains enough fundamental charm to insure the remake is not altogether a forlorn exercise. One positive outcome might be that it will entice audiences to seek out the superior original.

For a Japanese husband to secretly attend dancing lessons is the cultural equivalent of committing adultery. In America the connotations are somewhat less serious. Shall We Dansu?'s writer and director Masayuki Suo captured perfectly the internal conflict of middle aged businessman faced with Japan's repressed moral codes and his own desire for self expression.

Here writer Audrey Wells, adapting Suo's script, and director Peter Chelsom have given the dilemma to an estate lawyer John Clarke (Richard Gere) whose uninspiring job and 19 year marriage to Beverly (Susan Sarandon) have left him unfulfilled. When he spots the enigmatic Paulina (Jennifer Lopez) in the window of Miss Mitzi's Dance School his curiosity wrestles with his uncertainty. "Oh my god, what are you doing?" he asks himself as he enters.

The reasons why Clarke feels the need to conceal his newly discovered passion for dancing from his wife are never wholly convincing, but in the context of this light and breezy comedy, built upon its strongly romantic foundations, it's not too critical. The important thing is that it gets Gere on the dancefloor and swooning women in the cinema.

While Clarke's obsession with the aloof Paulina provides Shall We Dance? with its latent heat, it's the other teachers and pupils at Miss Mitzi's who provide the film's comic element. The brassy Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), the bashful Vern (Omar Benson Miller) and the overly macho Chic (Bobby Cannavale) offer a vivid contrast to the more conservative Clarke, but things become decidedly farcical whenever the flamboyant Link (Stanley Tucci) is on screen. The sight of Tucci replete with fake tan, gleaming teeth, spray on trousers and shoulder length wig doing the rumba is as absurd as it is unlikely. While amusing, it strikes a tone at odds with much of the rest of the film.