Shall We Dance?
—Review by Elisabeth Leitch
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections
I admit it. I had not planned on seeing this movie. As I went to watch it, I already had it pigeonholed into a variety of stereotypes—Richard Gere movie, JLo movie, dance movie, chick flick, probably-not-as-good-as-the-foreign-original movie. Nonetheless, I found myself in a theater with a friend watching it the other night, and even in its simple, fairly predictable story, it caught me. While its previews had marketed the movie primarily as a romantic story about passion and love, as I watched it, I found that Shall We Dance? was about something more than the passion of romance: in the end, it told a story about seeking and finding a passion and love for life itself.
Shall We Dance? opens with Richard Gere’s John Clark riding home on the subway. He is talking to himself or us and tells us he is a lawyer and spends most of his days drawing up wills for his clients. He talks about the things people leave in wills and the process of someone making and revising a will. Then he tells us his response to his clients’ question of “is there anything else?� His answer is: “The rest is up to you,� and in this statement he sets the stage for the movie to come—the reality that sometimes life can seem as structured and mundane as the legalese in a will, but if we choose to seek it, to find it, to see it, life can be much more.
For John Clark, this journey to finding that something more to life occurs through dance. While he leads a good life, has a good job, and loves his family, he still seems discontented. Then, one night, he finds himself enrolling in a dance class after recognizing the same longing he feels inside himself on the face of a woman (Jennifer Lopez) staring out a dance studio window he passes every night. He is joined by two other men—Chic, in it for the women, and Scotty, in it to lose weight and get ready to propose to his girlfriend; Bobbie, a hardworking single mother who spends her evenings dancing; Miss Mitzy, the studio owner and a widow; Paulina (Lopez), a professional dancer who has retreated to the studio after a fall at a major competition; and later, Link (Stanley Tucci), a costumed coworker of Clark’s who loves Latin dance but feels he can’t dance as himself.
As the story unfolds, the members of the class not only learn to dance but also seem to find a deeper value in themselves and in their lives. Miss Mitzy stops going to her bottle in the cupboard during class and smiles, simply because she enjoys what she is doing, Paulina rediscovers her passion for dance, Clark quits moping home every night and instead dances all the way across the street and onto his train, Link eventually loses his wig, and all of the students enter a dance competition together. Although setbacks occur towards the end of the movie, by the time the credits roll, dance has become a positive part of all of the characters’ lives, not as something extra they needed to add, but as something that just helped them find meaning in the lives they already had and the people they already were.
Reflecting on Shall We Dance? in connection with real life, I can’t help but think how much life really can be like dancing. Sometimes we simply don’t know the steps, we feel foolish, and we just don’t know what to do. Other times, we miss steps, we trip, we fall. More often than not, the dance can feel more like a routine, like the same songs and the same steps over and over again, more like marching, less like really dancing. In many instances, we feel as though all we can do is dance alone and even if it is possible, it just isn’t quite the same as having a partner.
Just as all of the characters in Shall We Dance? were able to find value in their lives through dancing, I wonder if we also may be able to find that deeper meaning if we stop moping and marching and start dancing. I think about how lives might be transformed if each movement was not mechanical but filled with passion, emotion, purpose, and direction connected to each step we took. I ask myself how much more meaning each life on earth might have if we, like Clark, stopped being ashamed of not finding meaning in the things the world says should satisfy us and actually seek lives of deeper meaning and purpose.
Just as anyone can chose to join in at a dance or stand by the wall simply to watch, the decision to seek a life of meaning, passion, and emotion is also a choice. In the same way that Paulina urges Clark to not abandon dancing by painting the question “Shall we dance, Mr. Clark?� on a banner, I believe each of us is also being asked the same question on a daily basis, being asked by someone who knows the steps to every dance, who knows each of our individual styles, each of our individual abilities, and the true potential that is inside each and every one of us. In the same way that Beverly Clark’s (Susan Sarandon’s) desire for a husband to be someone to care for her and make sure her life does not go unnoticed or unwitnessed is answered by her husband taking her hand and teaching her to dance, God also extends his hand to that same longing in us, ready to lead us, teach us, pick us up whenever we fall, and asking us not just to live, not just to settle, but to take His hand and let our life become a dance.
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections
I admit it. I had not planned on seeing this movie. As I went to watch it, I already had it pigeonholed into a variety of stereotypes—Richard Gere movie, JLo movie, dance movie, chick flick, probably-not-as-good-as-the-foreign-original movie. Nonetheless, I found myself in a theater with a friend watching it the other night, and even in its simple, fairly predictable story, it caught me. While its previews had marketed the movie primarily as a romantic story about passion and love, as I watched it, I found that Shall We Dance? was about something more than the passion of romance: in the end, it told a story about seeking and finding a passion and love for life itself.
Shall We Dance? opens with Richard Gere’s John Clark riding home on the subway. He is talking to himself or us and tells us he is a lawyer and spends most of his days drawing up wills for his clients. He talks about the things people leave in wills and the process of someone making and revising a will. Then he tells us his response to his clients’ question of “is there anything else?� His answer is: “The rest is up to you,� and in this statement he sets the stage for the movie to come—the reality that sometimes life can seem as structured and mundane as the legalese in a will, but if we choose to seek it, to find it, to see it, life can be much more.
For John Clark, this journey to finding that something more to life occurs through dance. While he leads a good life, has a good job, and loves his family, he still seems discontented. Then, one night, he finds himself enrolling in a dance class after recognizing the same longing he feels inside himself on the face of a woman (Jennifer Lopez) staring out a dance studio window he passes every night. He is joined by two other men—Chic, in it for the women, and Scotty, in it to lose weight and get ready to propose to his girlfriend; Bobbie, a hardworking single mother who spends her evenings dancing; Miss Mitzy, the studio owner and a widow; Paulina (Lopez), a professional dancer who has retreated to the studio after a fall at a major competition; and later, Link (Stanley Tucci), a costumed coworker of Clark’s who loves Latin dance but feels he can’t dance as himself.
As the story unfolds, the members of the class not only learn to dance but also seem to find a deeper value in themselves and in their lives. Miss Mitzy stops going to her bottle in the cupboard during class and smiles, simply because she enjoys what she is doing, Paulina rediscovers her passion for dance, Clark quits moping home every night and instead dances all the way across the street and onto his train, Link eventually loses his wig, and all of the students enter a dance competition together. Although setbacks occur towards the end of the movie, by the time the credits roll, dance has become a positive part of all of the characters’ lives, not as something extra they needed to add, but as something that just helped them find meaning in the lives they already had and the people they already were.
Reflecting on Shall We Dance? in connection with real life, I can’t help but think how much life really can be like dancing. Sometimes we simply don’t know the steps, we feel foolish, and we just don’t know what to do. Other times, we miss steps, we trip, we fall. More often than not, the dance can feel more like a routine, like the same songs and the same steps over and over again, more like marching, less like really dancing. In many instances, we feel as though all we can do is dance alone and even if it is possible, it just isn’t quite the same as having a partner.
Just as all of the characters in Shall We Dance? were able to find value in their lives through dancing, I wonder if we also may be able to find that deeper meaning if we stop moping and marching and start dancing. I think about how lives might be transformed if each movement was not mechanical but filled with passion, emotion, purpose, and direction connected to each step we took. I ask myself how much more meaning each life on earth might have if we, like Clark, stopped being ashamed of not finding meaning in the things the world says should satisfy us and actually seek lives of deeper meaning and purpose.
Just as anyone can chose to join in at a dance or stand by the wall simply to watch, the decision to seek a life of meaning, passion, and emotion is also a choice. In the same way that Paulina urges Clark to not abandon dancing by painting the question “Shall we dance, Mr. Clark?� on a banner, I believe each of us is also being asked the same question on a daily basis, being asked by someone who knows the steps to every dance, who knows each of our individual styles, each of our individual abilities, and the true potential that is inside each and every one of us. In the same way that Beverly Clark’s (Susan Sarandon’s) desire for a husband to be someone to care for her and make sure her life does not go unnoticed or unwitnessed is answered by her husband taking her hand and teaching her to dance, God also extends his hand to that same longing in us, ready to lead us, teach us, pick us up whenever we fall, and asking us not just to live, not just to settle, but to take His hand and let our life become a dance.
2 Comments:
I loved this light-weight romantic comedy. When Beverly Clark shared her idea of marriage with the private I, I suddenly felt how very empty my life was. No witness!
I read one Hollywood critic's comment that the use of the song, "The Book of Love," was a disaster. Just goes to show you, different strokes yadda yadda. I had never heard the song before, and it came from behind and hit me between the eyes--it was perfectly placed in the movie--highlighting, underscoring, interpreting, summing up. In fact, it was the cause for me logging on and searching for the lyrics, which brought me to the reviews, and your blog!
I had the exactly same feeling as you did after watching the movie.. a really good review on this movie and we shall find our dance partner and the meaning of our lives..
Post a Comment
<< Home