Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

It took a while before i felt involved with the film and the characters. However, once more characters started joining the dance class i started to look forward to every scene in the ballroom. Robert Carlyle was obviously the lead role but Mary Steenburgen was fabulous. She was funny but serious and assertive, and her wardrobe throughout the movie evolved along with her character. A nice, subtle touch. As was the gentleman who starts and stops the music for her during the film, i think his name was Freeway? I started looking forward to every time he hit play on that tiny boom box and hearing the music boom through the theater sound. Overall i really enjoyed the film even though it started a little slow.

I saw this movie at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It truly was a wonderful package. All parts come together. After the film, the audience gave it a standing applause. It was a hit with the audience, including myself. I would see it again. Robert Carlyle was very good as the sympathetic baker, consumed by his wife's death, and inadvertently drawn into an emergency situation. The director/writer incorporates his older film of a boy's experience of being forced to go to dance and charm school, melding it perfectly with the now adult man's perception played by John Goodman. Others in the film were Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Donnie Wahlber, and Sean Astin, all giving a wonderful performance.

I loved the movie. I hope you get a chance to see it and it comes to your area. Its a great life story. John Goodman plays a man who is trying to return to his childhood girlfriend. Robert Carlyle finds him in his hour of need, and agrees to meet the childhood girlfriend for him

Robert Carlyle and Marisa Tomei are so wonderful together. The story of their meeting and falling and love is very romantic.

Mary Steenburgen is outstanding in her role as the dance instructor.

And Donnie Wahlberg steals the movie with his character.

Its a movie filled with outstanding actors. And a very touching and moving story. With great childhood stories.

The film's use of two voices relaying three narrative threads, artfully woven without confusion while maintaining audience interest and focus, could be used as a textbook for compound story structure. If the story hadn't been expanded from a short film thereby requiring this approach, I'd be heaping superlative praise on its inventiveness as well.

Entertaining, well-cast with excellent performances by its ensemble of seasoned character actors, and just quirky enough to offset its sometimes saccharin character, I think this will grow a deserved following when it airs on cable. A solid illustration of the possibility of 'charm' in contemporary cinema, it presented little violence beyond its illustration of an automobile accident site and the language of adolescent boys, and managed a passionate but never prurient love scene under cover of a liberal dusting of flour.

Enchanting!

saw it last nite at a complimentary screening. it was well worth seeing if only for robert carlyle's performance alone! he was absolutely extraordinary! i found mary steenburgen very affected, though, & was consciously aware that she was acting! i can't understand all the positive comments about her performance in this movie, though i absolutely adore her in other things (she was so great in joan of arcadia on TV, for example). i liked the interweaving of past & present & the way story lines played out & were connected eventually. it was well told. it integrated pathos with humor & had many unexpected touches. some of the acting was like caricature - e.g., donny wahlberg's, & i did not enjoy that type of aspect whenever it occurred. but on the whole i felt this was a well crafted film of value and substance. i'm glad i saw it.