Shall We Dance? 2004 by AverageMansReviews

Shall We Dance? 2004 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time

Warning: there is flashing effects/colourful effects/bodily functions/medical/references to homosexuality and the disabled community

I recently had my birthday, I need to find something that fulfils me: John Clark [Richard Gear:] he is a lawyer, would deal with divorces, he also has a wife: Beverley Clarke [Susan Sarandon:] she is either the owner of her own business or higher, to be brutally honest they don't give us much and the bit I might have missed well I did miss it happens quickly; either way apologies for that, they have a daughter. But when John takes a dancing lessons in a class, that one of the teachers happens to be Paulina [Jennifer Lopez:] she is a teacher that at first takes John's niceness the wrong way, but after getting him some dancing lessons so we can participate in this competition, she realises he is just a nice guy.

Generally speaking: the script, the framework, pacing, action and comedy of this 106 minutes film is straightforward, basically what we have here is a lot of these either lesson or training types of sequences montages: There is fleeting bits and comedy such as when Paulina takes this other character to show how to do the Rumba right with passion, which needless to say everyone just melts including this other character saying something to the effect of: see why can't you just do it like that? And much later on in the film, they should have done this scene in perhaps a slightly warmer location or a bra perhaps?: As John is reading this letter from Paulina/Lopez providing voice-over: she is practising dancing somewhere else and she is a short light pink top on and she seems to be suffering from the coldness a little bit.

Character developments and performances; broadly speaking all is good be in the character developments or/and the performances, but there is one thing which really got up my nose and it is; the narrative of John doing something wrong, okay what would have been much better is this husband-and-wife coming to understand that they did wrong on both sides and in no way shape or form was it just John and at one point it is a complete overreaction from Beverley as they were holding up traffic: Beverley noticing the difference [she isn't the only one that notices,] she decides to employ a private detective agency to see if her husband was cheating on her, but he was just in a dancing class and the reason he didn't want to tell her, is because he felt ashamed, because they have so much but he wasn't happy. So we aren't even going to discuss in the film that your wife: Beverley for almost 2 decades, hired a private detective agency and had you followed and pictures taken... Okay then, this is completely normal behaviour... Not! In fact the daughter takes her mother's side in one comment and he even stops dancing, the uncomfortable truth is that fact; if it was John doing/partaking in this behaviour broadly speaking everyone would have a different opinion of this film.

This film receives: 5/10, this film is mixed; yes by in large the film knows what it is from beginning to end and it sticks to that, but however because of this one point and had to take off a mark. Because everyone knows at minimum there is an element of truth or more to what I had referenced [more than an element of truth about it, to be honest.] But hell what do I know? This film still got some awards accredited to its name; 7 Nominees which include but not limited to Teen Choice Awards 2005 Teen Choice Award Choice Movie Dance Scene Jennifer Lopez Richard Gere and AARP Movies for Grownups Awards 2005  Movies for Grownups Award Best Grownup Love Story Susan Sarandon Richard Gere