BEFORE: Susan Sarandon carries over from "Elizabethtown" - note that this film COULD have come right after my Valentine's Day film this year, in fact for a long while that was the plan, but then I realized that several films with Andie MacDowell were no longer streaming, and I had to re-work the plan. To maximize the romance chain, and also to put a focus on the films currently taking up space on the DVR, like today's film, that necessitated splitting up the Susan Sarandon films - but she'll still get credit for a February hat trick. I can't really explain my scheduling methods sometimes, you'd need to see the full color-coded list of about 500 films to fully understand why I end up watching some films and not others, in any given year. And there's always next year for those films that I skip, provided I can link to them.
We're one week into March now, after tonight I've got just about 10 films left on love and romance before I change topics. And really, re-working that chain seemed to be the right idea, because I've got at least one clear path to Easter now, and I can start thinking about another path to Mother's Day. In the meantime, TCM has 24 days left in their "31 Days of Oscar" month, so here's their line-up for Tuesday, March 8:
6:00 am "In Which We Serve" (1942)
8:00 am "Great Expectations" (1946)
10:00 am "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1941)
12:00 pm "Adventures of Don Juan" (1948)
2:00 pm "Black Narcissus" (1947)
3:45 pm "The Red Shoes" (1948)
6:00 pm "Cover Girl" (1944)
8:00 pm "Going My Way" (1944)
10:15 pm "The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
10:15 pm "The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
12:15 am "The More the Merrier" (1943)
2:15 am "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942)
4:30 am "On the Town" (1949)
Yeah, it's all films from the 1940's, I get that - but it's about half musicals, and so was yesterday's line-up. Why not just put the musicals together and make a day out of that? I'm still not really picking up what TCM is laying down this time around. Anyway, I can only really claim "Cover Girl", "The Philadelphia Story" and "On the Town" tomorrow, so another 3 seen out of 12 takes me to 34 out of 90, taking me down to 37%.
THE PLOT: A romantic comedy where a bored, overworked lawyer, upon first sight of a beautiful instructor, signs up for ballroom dancing lessons.
AFTER: Well, perhaps this one SHOULD have been my Valentine's Day film, it certainly had more romance in it than "Romance & Cigarettes" did. I've got to stop taking the easiest route, and programming by title. The title doesn't matter as much as the subject of the film, and the themes involved. Of course, I never want to learn TOO much about a movie before watching it, and on top of that, I can't go back and change it, so too late, it is what it is.
At first this is just about an aging married lawyer who's just had a birthday, and decides to take dancing lessons, because he thinks it might make him happy. Plus he's intrigued by the sad, beautiful dance instructor who gazes out the window of the dance studio every night as he passes by on the elevated train. Yeah, he MIGHT have showed up with the intention of dancing with a pretty woman, and maybe even cheating, but the good news is, he doesn't act on these feelings and have an affair, he just keeps his dance lessons secret from his wife.
It's not exactly clear, not at first anyway, why he's embarrassed about taking dancing lessons - he could, for example, have invited his wife along and they could have taken lessons together. But then he would be admitting to another person that one some level, he wasn't happy, and he wasn't prepared to do that. But as a result, his wife then suspects he's having an affair when he comes home late every Wednesday night. Hmmm.... She even hires a detective to follow him on that night of the week and find out what he's up to - probably influenced by the tale of a co-worker who just found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, and she didn't know.
For a long while, this film gets really bogged down in the minute details of dance class, like the fact that dancers sweat, especially the ones who are out of shape. Did we really need to learn this, couldn't we have just assumed this was the case? And yes, those early lessons are very tedious as these awkward men learn to move around awkwardly, but eventually they all seem to get the hang of it, and they all want to participate in some big Chicago amateur dancing competition. The men become friends with each other, they all become friends with their dance instructors, the wife even becomes friends with the detective - so, really, there's not much conflict here, just a manufactured one when John's wife THINKS he's cheating, and then another small blow-up when she confronts him after the big dance-off. They reconcile, of course, the relationship was never in any real jeopardy, they just needed to add dancing. Ho-hum, not my thing.
The story arc of John's co-worker, Link, played by Stanley Tucci, was much more interesting. He acted like the big, macho football fan in the office, but it was all an act, he just wanted to put on sequined suits, self-tanner and a wig and go dance Latin-style. Hey, it's OK, macho guys can dance, too, it's completely separate from sexual preference, except for when it isn't. Straight guys can dance, gay guys can dance, it's the great equalizer - they just can't really dance with each other, I guess. Link's dream, however, is just to rip the wig off, be bald, bold and comfortable when he dances - and that does happen, just not really the way that he thought it would. And Link finds a romantic partner through dancing - so does Chic, but his story is kind of the reverse of Link's, in the end. Hey, whatever, no judgments here.
Maybe it's a bit of serendipity that this film ended up here, and not closer to Valentine's Day - because here in NYC they've just ended the mask mandates, and people can go out freely again to restaurants, play bingo, exercise in gyms, and yeah, maybe dancing can be a thing again. It just feels like after two years of lockdowns and distancing, this city is ready to party, people are going to be getting their freak on this spring and summer. Partying, partying, it's coming soon. Me, I just want to be able to hit a buffet or two in Atlantic City within the next month or so, that's all I ask. Speaking of pandemics, "Shall We Dance" filmed many scenes in Winnipeg, Canada instead of Toronto, because of the SARS scare in 2003 - does anybody even remember that one at this point?
Ultimately this is a film about dancing - but also a case study in long-term relationships, where honesty is of course proven to be the best policy. Also, the two members of the couple need to find that balance between doing things together, while also each having their own interests and hobbies. A married couple should spend some time together, but maybe not ALL their time together - they should spend some time apart, but maybe not too much. It can be tough sometimes to know where to draw those lines, but communication and understanding are probably key. Would it really have been THAT bad if he had told his wife early on that he might want to try dancing for a bit, to see if he was any good at it?
Also starring Richard Gere (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Hustlers"), Lisa Ann Walter (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Lucky Number Slevin"), Anita Gillette (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Romance & Cigarettes"), Omar Benson Miller (last seen in "Lucky You"), Tamara Hope, Stark Sands (last seen in "The Post"), Richard Jenkins (last seen in "Trapped in Paradise"), Nick Cannon (last seen in "Bobby"), Sarah Lafleur, Onalee Ames, Diana Salvatore, Daphne Korol, Tony Dovolani, David Sparrow (last seen in "16 Blocks"), Matt Gordon (last seen in "Room"), Candace Smith, Sandra Caldwell, Mairi Babb, Karina Smirnoff, Diana Marquis, Beatriz Pizano (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Mya, Ja Rule (last seen in "Fyre"), James Sermons, Geri Hall (last seen in "Little Italy"), Slavik Kryklyvyy.
RATING: 5 out of 10 couples competing in the Pasa Doble
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