Shall We Dance - Life as a Dance Floor?

You expect a 'comedy' to tickle your funny bone so you can walk out chuckling. Yes, Shall We Dance does raise laughs. But - it also raises some interesting questions. The DVD says it's 'A New Comedy About Following Your Own Lead' and a pun like that is bound to appeal to the individualistic age we are supposed to be living in. It does indeed - and yet, what is happiness and contentment? Is it a lovely, loving and loved spouse and all the trappings of a comfortable settled life? Can there be a sense of incompleteness in spite of having 'everything'? Is that then ingratitude? Should one be allowed to pursue individual goals? At what cost?

John (Richard Gere) and Beverly (Susan Sarandon) Clark are comfortably married. They have two children, and he a good job as a lawyer. Yet, he is not 'happy'. He fills the void in his life by impulsively shooting out of his commuter train seat up the stairs of Miss Mitzi's Dance School after being captivated by Paulina (Jennifer Lopez) gazing out of the school window. A clumsy, shy, reluctant dancer at first, he taps a hidden side to his personality and blossoms into an accomplished ballroom dancer. All very well, except none of his family is aware of this chrysalis bursting open in this way.

In roughly one hour and forty-five minutes, the film turns all expectations and predictability on their respective heads. With all the action building up towards the climactic Chicago Tattinger Trophy who could blame you for expecting a neatly wrapped package at that point: Clark rewarded for his accomplishment, all revealed and settled? But - it is its aftermath that has much to say. Yes, there is dance as the mating ritual. Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), earthy, vivacious, loud, generous-hearted, is disappointed at Clark's treatment of Rumba, "the dance of love". Paulina with her smouldering, controlled, Latino (stereotypical?) passion sets him straight. Yes, there is the hinted sexual attraction, even tension. But - there are also the bonds forged of friendship, camaraderie and candour. Life and people are given a direction by and through dance. John Clark is able to put his life in perspective, while Paulina unearths a lost spirit to chase her dreams. Beverly, a "romantic" with her sense of romance probably buried under the laundry, jackets at the apparel division where she works and the whims of two teenage children, is very understandably miffed but finds her feet again - and how!

Then again, with the theme as dance and its physicality, you expect sparks between John and Paulina. You wait with bated breaths for the final dance with John and Paulina as partners. It comes but is disarmingly casual. The sparks are somewhere else, the chemistry too elsewhere. And that comes as a happy frustration of the predictability of amorous dalliance. What is not such a happy frustration is the performance of the action's catalyst (Paulina) - it lacks conviction. True, she needs to be controlled, but control too can have vitality. While Gere and Sarandon are better, the one who really appeals is Link Peterson (Stanley Tucci), John's office colleague and a closet dancer.

When Link Peterson finds the courage to literally chuck his wig and figuratively his embarrassment and the need for disguise and secrecy, you are pleasantly surprised by the forcefulness of an outwardly meek man. He symbolizes the frank unashamed admission of one's 'lead' that settles all nagging doubts. It is a core of integrity that attracts the coarse, cynical but fundamentally straightforward detective (Richard Jenkins) Beverly hires who can't help a "Spectacular!" as he witnesses John and Bobbie waltzing.

The film explores relationships - between a married couple, between teacher and student, between peers, between the individual who wants to pursue his own likes and the group that may or may not 'approve'. Dance becomes the (clichйd?) metaphor for life. Life as perfect when the partners achieve the fluid grace and harmony even as they retain their individual touches, complementing each other, reflected in Bobbie and Clark's waltz. A sublimity that cannot help but draw out astonished admiration even from a disbelieving adolescent daughter who once screamed at a fuddy-duddy daddy for peeping into her tattoo party.

The stumbling, fumbling movements as the partners try to reach that level of accomplishment