Don't miss this one - unless your life has always been perfect and easy.In that case, this movie would not be for you! If you have had sorrow, loss, and disappointment, you will find redemption and compassion in this heart-felt movie.All of the actors are amazing. The story line is precious and so compelling. I am sharing with all of my friends, because I don't have any "perfect" people in my list of friends any more!I wonder how I missed this one, except that I have always been so "behind" everyone else, that I wouldn't have "gotten" this movie 8 years ago. I do now. Guess it's a "maturity" thing. Invest a couple of hours. You will be so glad you did. Although there are incredibly sad elements to this movie, it ends on such a note of completion, that you will come away feeling able to embrace all of the mistakes (or losses) in your life, and to not only forgive yourself, but to applaud your own courage and survival!

Viewed as it is, without the cynicism that comes with having seen too many movies both good and bad, MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCE AND CHARM SCHOOL is an affecting picture about disaffected, bruised people whose destinies converge in this little motif of a tableau. An expanded concept from a short film of the same name that was released in 1990, this is a very romantic (i.e. "escapist") take on lost love, and the intent to rekindle it in a time and place where dreams have been lost, people have outgrown their innocence, and the only thing lingering over their heads is a small sliver of hope to return to that safe haven.The movie cuts between time zones in a style closer to the fragmented storytelling of Guillermo Arriaga's 21 GRAMS and THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, and changes palettes according to each: blue for the fateful encounter between Robert Carlyle's and John Goodman's character, pastel for the flashback sequence where we see the title character, and a more balanced tone for the story as it eventually unfolds from Carlyle's point of view. It's a technique that works in unraveling the parallels of the characters as children, and seeing them now, as broken adults.It almost becomes a thriller in a way that is less dependent on an intentional story within a story. Carlyle's quiet baker, trying to locate Goodman's childhood sweetheart Lisa, stumbles on another situation where another shy girl, played by Marisa Tomei, is being brutalized by her half-brother, played by Donnie Wahlberg, and discovers a second chance at love. All the while, the specter of this ideal Lisa hanging over the ballroom and Marienne Hotchkiss' sensual-robotic commands, which makes her actual introduction late into the story as a bitter woman all the more heartbreaking. Camryn Manheim plays out all the anger and sadness into her brief scene where she at first pretends not to know what the hell this stranger is doing at her door, and later, alone, reveals to us her pain.An imperfect movie in the way it decides to resolve supporting conflicts and uses the voice-over narration of John Goodman to near unbelievable levels, but again, this is an escapist feature length film made with what seems to be genuine love for the material and devoid of all manipulation.

Writer-director Randall Miller tries far too hard to make a multi-layered film about spiritual reawakening that he defaults into either formula or incoherence to move his low-budget movie along. With its unwieldy title signaling its contrivance, the 2006 dramedy, co-written by Miller and his wife Jody Savin, is an oddly unsatisfying film that attempts to track three different timelines through jumpy edits and differing film stock. Filmed in irritating bleached tones, the first storyline focuses on Frank Keane, an Irishman who moved his family's baking business to California. Shell-shocked from his wife's recent suicide, he comes upon a road accident which has left the driver badly hurt and pinned inside his car. The victim is Steve Mills, an overweight, seemingly gregarious man who was rushing to meet Linda, his childhood crush from forty years earlier, in the ballroom where they last saw each other.This kick-starts the second storyline, which flashes back to Steve's pre-adolescence when he accidentally gave Linda a black eye during a rough game of British Bulldog. With heavy echoes of "The Wonder Years", this portion of the movie is actually footage from Miller's 1990 short with the same title. It shows Steve and Linda first dancing at the Marilyn Hotchkiss ballroom. With Steve sharing his memories with Frank and Frank attempting to keep Steve conscious on the way to the hospital, we are given the third storyline which takes place again in the Marilyn Hotchkiss ballroom, this time in the present day. This time, in Steve's place, Frank shows up for dance class trying to find the now adult Linda amid a gallery of eccentric characters learning to dance under the tutelage of the late Marilyn's daughter, Marienne. Even more characters are introduced by way of Frank's therapy support group of recently widowed men.The cumulative result is a hodgepodge of artificial moments that feed into Miller's overriding theme of getting on with one's life in spite of the barriers one faces. For such a potentially strong ensemble, the performances are variable though mainly because most of the actors are not given enough screen time to flesh out their stereotypical characters. With his mangy-looking hair and sad eyes, Robert Carlyle does well enough as Frank, though his zombie-like behavior at the outset is enough to unsettle anyone. John Goodman plays Steve as the accident victim, though the combination of his bulky, uncomfortable-looking frame and his wheezing delivery is hard to watch for an extended period. Marisa Tomei affectingly portrays Frank's new love interest, Meredith, who holds a secret and has an intractable link to her constant dance partner, Randall, played convincingly by Donnie Wahlberg as an egocentric bully who feels he owns the dance floor.Others are simply wasted in smaller roles – an affected Mary Steenburgen as the prim Marienne who demands order and courtesy in her late mother's ballroom; Sonia Braga as a flirtatious dancer; and as members of Frank's support group, Sean Astin, Adam Arkin, David Paymer and Ernie Hudson. The ending contains something of a twist, and Camryn Manheim and Danny DeVito show up late in the film in intriguing cameos. But by that point, it all comes too late due to the overlapping story lines and sluggish pacing. The DVD has rather perfunctory commentary from Miller, Savin and actor Elden Hensen, who plays both Frank's bakery co-worker in the modern sequences and Sam in the vintage flashbacks filmed in 1990 when he was thirteen. The other significant extra is the original 1990 short with William Hurt providing the memory flashback voice-over as the adult Sam. The package strangely does not make clear that this is the inspiration for the later film, so it seems like a patched-together version of the flashback scenes.

Do you like long, slow, artsy-fartsy movies with lots of black & white flashbacks that go on forever ? Then you'll love this one.There are some good actors here, but this film represents their worst work. John Goodman's performance, as an accident victim, is lost. He looks about twice as obese as I remember him, and his face crowds the screen. Frankly, I couldn't get through it, and Donna Grayson's previous comments are completely inexplicable. She must have been involved in the production and is trying to beat the dead horse of promoting the film.Avoid this film like the plague, and you'll be a much happier person.