Love isn’t strictly ballroom

IMAGINE A WORKAHOLIC LAWYER (RICHARD GERE) WHOSE LIFE AND MARRIAGE TAKE AN unexpected twirl when he follows a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez) to a Chicago dance studio and begins taking dance lessons under her. What begins as a romantic comedy soon turns into an exhilarating tale about the unexpected places one finds passion.

Screenwriter Audrey Wells has long had a fascination with how people are able to find passion–whether romantic or creative–in the midst of today’s busy and distracted modern lives. She has explored this theme in several films she’s written and directed, including Under the Tuscan Sun. But Shall We Dance was different, she felt, because it wasn’t so much about finding conventional love, but more about rediscovering the joy of pursuing one’s most hidden dreams, and about reviving the spark and passion of a good but routine marriage in mid-life.

Wells began to adapt the 1996 runaway Japanese hit film Shall We Dance (Dansu Wo Shimasho Ka) into an English-language film, but right away she realized much more than the language was going to have to change. The whole culture surrounding the story would become entirely new.

In transferring the story’s location to the United States–with its far more open and diverse, yet often equally adrift, society–Wells also shifted the humor to a hipper, more American style; added Chicago color to the dance school’s comic-tinged patrons; and most of all, re-imagined the main character’s struggle. For the lead character, John Clark isn’t caught up in the rigidity of Japanese society as in the original–but in his own limited definition of who he can be beyond a father and lawyer. Wells created Clark, played by Gere, as a typical American urban professional, "the type who can do everything extremely well but doesn’t remember how to dream, until he enters that studio".

That same rediscovery of how to dream spreads out through the rest of the characters in Shall We Dance as well, from Jennifer Lopez’s disillusioned champion dancer, Paulina, who recovers her desire to compete again, to Stanley Tucci’s outrageous, disguised ballroom wanna-be, who finally learns how to be himself.

The one thing that didn’t change, however, that couldn’t change, was the script’s focus on the sheer thrills of flying around the room, ballroom style, in the arms of a partner who knows your every move. Although the story has a different tone and feel, Wells keeps dance at the heart of the story, letting the gestures and moves of John Clark and his new friends tell part of the tale, and reveal the kind of ineffable feelings that go beyond language.

The combination of buoyant dance sequences, spirited comedy and a moving storyline about contemporary lives compelled producer Simon Fields and director Peter Chelsom to immediately want to make the film as soon as Wells’ script arrived at their office. They felt this new version of Shall We Dance not only held out the promise of great fun, but hit upon themes not often seen at the movies.

"This is a story people can relate to," explains Fields. "It isn’t about a desperate man who unrealistically turns his life completely around. Instead, it’s a story about a man who, like most of us, is basically doing really well, who has a good job, a loving family and a successful marriage. But then one day he sees this amazing face through a window and he begins to wonder if there’s somewhere higher he can go. I hadn’t read anything like that before, that touched upon this question of what’s really possible in an already pretty good life, and that was exciting."

Adds Chelsom: "What I liked about Audrey Wells’ take is that these people go to Miss Mitzi’s expecting to learn to dance and yet emerge learning so much more. Each character is broken down. Each character seems to be carrying a secret they are not ready to share. And they all develop because one man one day got off a train in order to have one dance with one girl he saw at a window. I like the cause and effect of the premise."

Fields and Chelsom were familiar with the original Japanese film but were impressed by how Wells had carefully relocated it across the Pacific Ocean, allowing it to reflect a more American exuberance and perspective on seeking satisfaction beyond work and family life.

Observes Chelsom: "Much of the conflict in the original Japanese film stems from Japanese taboos about the public intimacy of dance. Obviously, this wouldn’t work in an American setting. But the American taboo that’s central in Audrey’s screenplay is this idea that if you’re living the American dream, then you don’t have the right to hold up your hand and say ‘hey, I’m unhappy’. What I loved about this story, and what I was so drawn to, is that it’s about a restlessness that is all around us but not often talked about. In spite of having so much, John Clark is missing something. It’s as if he’s living an ideal, not really living his life. He realizes that even though he and his wife are always on the move, something inside them has just stopped, and he’s driven to find some kind of passion. That’s the beautiful subtlety of this movie for me."

Shall We Dance opens on February 9 across Metro Manila.