I am drying my eyes.  I always cry when I watch this movie.  Every time.  And always in the same places.  It’s a very unsentimental film too, so what is it that always tugs at my heart?  The movie I’m referring to is “Shall We Dance” starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, made in 2004 and first released on the art circuit.  It also stars Jennifer Lopez, but don’t let that fact make you stop reading this.  At the heart of this film is pure, honest human emotions, failings and fears.  Richard Gere plays a (gorgeous) middle aged man who commutes home every night on the train in Chicago.  On his way home he notices a dance studio and spots Jennifer’s character, Paulina.  The hapless group of would-be ballroom dancers are wonderfully – sometimes tragically – entertaining.  But each somehow mirrors a facet of myself, and probably everybody else too.  Nobody is perfect in this film.  Gere doesn’t end up a champion dancer.  But the ending is more beautiful, more moving than you would ever expect.   And the dancing represents that repressed passion and fire that is within all of us.

Gere’s character hides his nocturnal cha-cha classes from his wife, played by Susan Sarandon, who then hires a private detective to find out if he’s having an affair.  After finding out what he’s been up to, she doesn’t understand why he would keep it a secret from her.  In a memorable scene the PI asks her why people should get married?  She replies:  “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness…”

So why do I love this film so much?  Is it that scene where Richard Gere emerges on the escalator dressed in a tuxedo, holding a red rose?  Or is it the way that his voice falters and trembles when he says to his wife:  “The one thing I am proudest of in my whole life, is that you’re happy with me. If I couldn’t tell you that I was unhappy sometimes, it’s because I didn’t want to risk hurting the one person I treasure most.”   Or maybe it’s when he tells his wife that he was ashamed of wanting more, when he had so much.  The dance scenes make my muscles twitch and I long to be them, gliding so gracefully across the polished wooden dance floor. 

It’s about going beyond the mundane repetitive things we do in life and trying something new and exciting that makes you feel alive.  And it’s about Love, Friendship, and being true to yourself.