Shall We Dance? (2004)

A bored Chicago estate lawyer rides the elevated train past a dance studio window, spies a melancholy woman, and signs up for lessons under false pretenses. This is the 2004 American remake of a Japanese film, and it arrives with all the cultural specificity of a hotel lobby. Peter Chelsom directs with a soft hand. Richard Gere is amiable, Susan Sarandon is underused, and the whole enterprise hums along at the pace of a well-maintained escalator.

The casting is modestly varied for its era, with Jennifer Lopez, Bobby Cannavale, and Omar Benson Miller filling roles that were not written as statements about anything. Paulina is a driven professional who rediscovers her competitive ambitions, and Beverly is granted the dignity of choosing not to rifle through her husband's private life. These are character beats. The film is not building an argument. Stanley Tucci's Chic spends the runtime as a closeted man sneaking off to dance, and the closing montage hands him a partner and a nightclub, a moment of matter-of-fact inclusion that passes without comment or fanfare. The dance studio also makes room for the elderly and the uncoordinated, suggesting that grace is available to anybody willing to look foolish for a few months. It is warm. It is not a program.

The film's politics are essentially nonexistent, which in 2004 was not yet considered a scandal. John's vague dissatisfaction with his comfortable life is the closest the screenplay comes to a critique of anything, and it resolves by having him keep the life and add a hobby. No one eats the rich. The rich simply learn the foxtrot. There is no climate anxiety, no historical revision, no sermon delivered to the audience, no diagnosis of the viewer's moral failings. What remains is a mild, pleasant film about a man who wanted to dance and was allowed to. In the current climate of cinema this registers as almost exotic. It is not important. It is not objectionable. It is a Tuesday.