Reviews of Ballroom Dance Movies
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Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
This review is with thanks to www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School" is a film for anyone who has ever longed to revisit a childhood sweetheart.
Although that's not exactly what happens, the film is an elegiac journey to a sweeter, more civilized place in the heart. Predictable and decidedly old-fashioned in its sensibility, the film is likely to win over audiences if not critics.
The story is a fairy tale of sorts, the kind that happens when you meet someone unexpectedly who changes your life. Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle), a baker, is a lost soul going through life on automatic pilot. He is consumed by his wife's unexplained suicide; his closet is still full of her clothes, and he greets her ashes every morning.
On a delivery run one day in his circa-1960s truck, he happens upon a car wreck. The man inside, Steve Mills (John Goodman), is crushed behind the wheel. To keep him alive, Frank gets him to talk about his life. Steve was on his way to a rendezvous with his childhood girlfriend, whom he hasn't seen in 40 years but has sworn to meet at the Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, the place they first met as kids, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the new millennium.
As Steve relates his life story between gasps and Frank reveals some of his own experience, the wheel of fate turns. To be sure it's oiled by a heavy dose of syrup, but it is hard to resist a dying man's wish. Steve wants Frank to keep his appointment and go to the school to meet his girlfriend Lisa in his place. Unfortunately, she's a no-show. But Frank stays for class anyway and the magic of dance starts to take effect.
As dispensed by Marienne Hotchkiss (Mary Steenburgen), evoking the ghost of her dead mother, Marilyn, it's a spell she says can release the deepest hidden feelings and color your life magenta (yes, she says that) if you are prepared to accept the responsibilities. And, of course, there's a girl (Marisa Tomei) there to help the process along.
Naturally, there are some bumps on the road to love -- an irate step-brother (Donnie Wahlberg) who punches out Frank -- and a few hidden secrets, but nothing that would constitute a surprise. Director Randall Miller, who expanded the material from a short he made 15 years ago, tends to go for the easy surface feelings rather than tapping the deeper stuff. Carlyle is light on his feet and easy on the eyes, but Goodman is the closest thing to a big country ham onscreen this year.
The adventures of these people, including Frank's men's group, who eventually turn up at the dance class, could be the stuff of a TV sitcom. But holding disbelief in check and cynicism at bay, one can almost follow Marienne Hotchkiss in her stunning blue-sequined gown slit up one leg as she evokes the mood and manners of the '50s. Guiding her class through the lindy hop or the merengue, Steenburgen has a grace and lightness of touch the rest of the film could have benefited from.
MARILYN HOTCHKISS BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL
Unclaimed Freight Prods., Charm School, Shoreline Entertainment
Credits:
Director-editor: Randall Miller
Screenwriters: Randall Miller, Jody Savin
Producers: Randall Miller, Jody Savin, Morris Ruskin, Eileen Craft
Executive producers: Art Klein, Ronald Savin, Eduardo Castro
Director of photography: Jonathan Sela
Production designer
Dawn Synder
Music: Mark Adler
Costume designer: Kathryn Morrison
Editor: Randall Miller
Cast:
Frank Keane: Robert Carlyle
Meredith Morrison: Marisa Tomei
Steve Mills: John Goodman
Marienne Hotchkiss: Mary Steenburgen
Randall Ipswich: Donnie Wahlberg
Blake Rische: Ernie Hudson
Rafael Horowitz: David Paymer
Lisa Gobar: Camryn Manheim
Gabe DiFranco: Adam Arkin
Tina: Sonya Braga
Samson: Elden Henson
Matthew Smith: Miguel Sandoval
Booth: Danny DeVito
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 103 minutes
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