Review of Shall We Dance? (2004) by Manny C — 23 Mar 2011

Talk about a misfire. This American remake of a much better 1996 Japanese film is clumsy and terribly tedious, all helmed by director Peter Chelsom (he of the drab Town and Country).

Richard Gere is a middle-aged worker drone, feeling trapped in a seemingly too comfortable marriage (with wife Susan Sarandon), who one night spies a woman in a window (Jennifer Lopez) on his train ride home. The woman is a ballroom dance instructor, which prompts him to take up lessons, not to try and get with the woman but o reignite his marriage.

There's no denying that seeing Gere get his dance on is sheer joy, but his confidence and charisma doesn't match up for a role that calls for a man unnoticed by the world. Ditto Sarandon apparently playing a housewife similarly neglected. As for Lopez, she just poses rather than acts. Shall We Dance falls flatter than a flapjack.