Love Dance

If you loved "Dirty Dancing" you'll enjoy this movie; both were written by Eleanor Bergstein.

Heartwarming story about three couples at a dance studio. Perfectly cast. Jamie Goodwin and Yancy Butler make a stunning dance team. Patrick Stewart with an American accent (!) and the ever graceful Leslie Caron. Jennifer Beals, in a surprisingly conservative role, and the dashing Campbell Scott, as the confused groom-to-be.

The bar scenes between Gabriel and Jordan, are hilarious.

The score is lively, the dance sequences beautiful. It's an uplifting movie! Made me want to go out and take lessons, myself.

Let it be Me is nothing more than a cute romantic film about couples who falls in love during dance lessons. I remember James Goodwin from his Another World days. It's nice to see Leslie Caron again as Patrick Stewart's love interest. The dancing could have been better though without being corny at times. Otherwise, it is well worth a watch to see couples fall in love. It's not Dirty Dancing but it's from the writer who created that phenomenon. Let It Be Me is about couples who get together during dance classes. The cast is first rate with Leslie Caron, Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Beals and Jamie Goodwin. It's not what you expect but it's okay and fare.

If you like dancing, you'll like this film in general but you might find it a little boring in places. Patrick Stewart is charming and he has a really good chemistry with Leslie Caron. It's really nice to see Jennifer Beals again, she's a fine actress and one of the great beauties of Hollywood, though she doesn't flaunt it like so many others. I saw on the credits that Elliott Gould (a great dancer) was in this film, but for the life of me, I could not find him in this movie.

Why is there such a sharp division of opinion on this charming movie? I suspect because it is a "difficult" romantic comedy. In almost all romantic comedies, it's clear from the credits which couples will end up with each other. The male and female leads are destined to be paired, as are the secondary male and female stars, and the pleasure lies in seeing the couples correctly sorted out after a lot of confusion. In "Let It Be Me," the only absolutely perfect pairing is that of third leads Patrick Stewart and Leslie Caron. It's a very close question whether the engaged couple, Campbell Scott and Jennifer Beals, and the dance studio partners, James Goodwin and Yancey Butler, are really destined for each other or whether they should change partners and dance. "Some people just belong together," Beals says, but which people is a harder question to answer here than in most comedies, though it is satisfactorily answered by the ending.

Dance movies usually keep my interest and Let It Be Me did just that. However, the two main couples had very little chemistry and as I watched it I would have been like with a better cast. Jamie Goodwin was wooden and mechanical. Aside from looking great from the hairline down, he was barely adequate. Jennifer Beals is a very good actress and tried hard to create something with dance instructor Jamie Goodwin, her former high school love. She and her fiancé played by Campbell Scott were a more credible couple. Yancy Butler was very smooth, but she looked bruised and unhappy during her non-dancing scenes. The third couple played by Leslie Caron and Patrick Stewart were lovely, charming and pleasantly predictable. They grounded the movie with their mature romance and skillful dancing. Their wedding at the end of the film was the most satisfying scene. The other dance sequences were good, but not great.