Yes, indeed, this movie didn't display much eroticism. It wasn't meant to be erotic. Yes, agreed, this movie doesn't cover any new ground or new techniques. It was quite appropriate to work with things that have been tried in the past - in different ways - once again, and yes, by all means, things worked out in the end the way they so seldom do in films of our time, much to my surprise. It was a happy ending to (basically) a happy movie and there's nothing whatsoever in the world wrong with that. Even more, it's handled well on all levels - acting, script, music, dancing, color, camera movement...It's a film that fulfilled a need that many of us feel when the world doesn't go where we want it to go. It simply moves the world!

Shall We Dance? (2004): Dir: Peter Chelsom / Cast: Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins: Romantic comedy about invitation or risk. Richard Gere is bored with his routine life and marriage. He arrives home by subway but always gazes upward towards the dance studio where Jennifer Lopez stands motionless. He secretly enrolls in ballroom dancing thus giving him fulfillment but his wife suspects foul play and hires an investigator. While repetitious the setup is catchy and the ending is rewarding. Director Peter Chelsom does a fine job at examining ballroom dancing within the relationship established but Jennifer Lopez is disappointing in a stiff performance. She begins the film as an image observed in a window with a blank gaze on her face. From there it is pretty straightforward for her. Gere has fun as a guy stepping into a hidden passion that will ultimately prove rewarding. Susan Sarandon is well cast as his suspicious wife who is speechless to the sudden new behavior from her husband. Stanley Tucci steals scenes as Gere's boss who secretly dances donning a wig. That of course, gives way to lame homosexual stereotypes but Tucci wings it. Richard Jenkins plays a private investigator hired by Sarandon, who will be flustered at the facts he unearths. Celebration of dancing and its inner circle relationships result in a charming film. Score: 8 ½ / 10

Spoiler alert. I think this is really an exceptional, unusual ensemble movie. I've said I'm not a Richard Gere fan but I notice more often than not I really enjoy his work. He has a very modest way and sense of humor that I appreciate. In this one he is an attorney needing a little spark in his life (without knowing it), who notices JLo in the window of a dance studio and decides to dive in. Along the way he finds that his law partner (exquisitely, as always, played by Tucci) is a wig-wearing closet dancer himself. Walters is also great as Gere's eventual dance partner. If this was ordinary stuff Gere would end up with JLo and that would be that, as it is things don't go that way. My one complaint is the way they handle Gere's contest performance, which slightly flaws an otherwise intelligent movie. Otherwise, it's as fun and upbeat as they come.

Whenever I hear this title I first assume that it means the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical, but this one is actually based on the same title as a song featured in The King and I, from director Peter Chelsom (Funny Bones, Serendipity). Basically John Clark (Richard Gere) has a good job as a lawyer, Beverly (Susan Sarandon) as a loving wife and a happy family life, but he seems bored by all of this and fancies something new. He passes it every evening, and sees the same beautiful woman through the window, so he decides one night to enter the place, a dance lessons class, and he signs up hoping to be taught by the woman, Paulina (Jennifer Lopez). He may instead be being taught by the older Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), and he is just as clumsy as other dance students, such as Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Vern (American Pie Presents Band Camp's Omar Benson Miller), and for a while the woman he glanced at doesn't seem interested. After a while John does eventually get to meet Paulina, she only wants to teach dancing not have a date, but they do become good friends, to the point when he has fallen for her. He has been keeping the dance lessons a secret from everyone, all his friends and family, and eventually he has become really enraptured in the dancing as well, he is training for a championship Chicago dance competition. For this John is partnered with dancer Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), and he is against fellow dance student Link (Stanley Tucci), he obviously has Paulina watching from the audience, but he is unaware that Beverly and his daughter Jenna Clark (Tamara Hope) are there as well. This distracts him at the crucial point during the performance, and in the end he decides to quit, but his life returns to a happy normality, Linkn and Bobbie get together, Paulina gets a new dance partner for a Blackpool competition, and John and Beverly enjoy a dance together themselves. Also starring Stark Sands as Evan Clark, Richard Jenkins as Devine, Nick Cannon as Scott, Sarah Lafleur as Carolyn, Onalee Ames as Diane and Diana Salvatore as Tina. Gere is alright being reasonably charming as trying to escape his drab lifestyle, Sarandon doesn't get much to do at all as his wife, and of course Lopez looks gorgeous thrusting her moves and poking her bum out, even though her mood is low most of the time. If you are a fan of dancing films, and specifically ballroom, then I guess this has a fair amount in it to satisfy the eyes, as for the story in between it is lacking in originality, only the dancing is worth watching, otherwise it's probably only worth seeing the once, a slightly lame romantic comedy drama. Okay!