The sort of cloying, sentimental heart-tugger that would be more at home on network television than the big screen.
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:59
Fresh:13
Rotten:46
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: Clumsily staged and brimming with melodrama and trite self-help cliches, this dance movie stays stuck at amateur level.
Theatrical Release:25-08-2006
Synopsis: MARILYN HOTCHKISS' BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL begins with a fated meeting, as Frank (Robert Carlyle) pulls over to aid a car-crash victim, Steve (John Goodman), who is slowly dying by the... MARILYN HOTCHKISS' BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL begins with a fated meeting, as Frank (Robert Carlyle) pulls over to aid a car-crash victim, Steve (John Goodman), who is slowly dying by the side of the road. Frank is still coming to terms with his wife's suicide, so when Steve spins him a story about the dance school of the title, he decides to attend classes himself. Steve informs Frank that he was in love with a girl named Lisa (Camryn Manheim), who danced at the school when he was a 12-year-old boy. Now, some 40 years later, Frank was on his way to the school to meet her again, hoping to rekindle their flame. Director Randall Miller (CLASS ACT) neatly divides the story into three parts, providing flashbacks to flesh out Steve's story, showing Frank's desperate attempts--along with a paramedic team--to keep Steve alive, and illustrating what happens when Frank makes his way to the school. As the story pings back and forth, Frank arrives at the school intending to tell Lisa what happened to Steve, but fails to find her. What Frank does find, however, is Meredith (Marisa Tomei), a woman he hopes will fill in the aching gap left by the death of his wife. As Frank slowly falls in love with Meredith while continuing his search for Lisa, the film gently arcs through some sentimental material that should appeal to viewers who enjoy a good tearjerker. [More]
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Donnie Wahlberg
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Donnie Wahlberg, David Paymer, Danny De Vito, John Goodman, Camryn Manheim, Jody Savin
Director: Randall Miller
Director: Randall Miller
Producer: Eilleen Craft, Morris Rushkin
Composer: Mark Adler
Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Reviews for Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School
Marilyn Hotchkiss... is a bit device driven as it flashes back and forth from Frank's lonely life to the accident that will change him forever
Fine actors and acting do not compensate for a script with too many flaws.
Yes, it's shamelessly sentimental, and fairly predictable, but it has a big heart and an even bigger cast.
Predictable and decidedly old-fashioned in its sensibility, the film is likely to win over audiences if not critics.
While it's at times too melodramatic and formulaic to be entirely successful, it still holds some appeal; its very amateurishness is what makes it charming.
The thing is so clumsily scored and staged, so filled with banal self-help homilies, so predictable and ordinary and flat, that what should have been a quick glide around the floor becomes a slog.
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School may stumble at times, but at least it gets out on the dance floor and has a good time.
The film moves like a newbie following a diagram of arrows and shoes and counting out loud.
It's been simultaneously overwritten and underdirected by Randall Miller, who has turned his sweet 16-year-old short film into a syrupy, long-faced drama.
Not only are the shifts in time unclear, but the film lacks a stable emotional tone.
Think about this. You liked a schoolmate when you were 8, and for 40 years have focused on this reunion. Are you crazy?
What started out as a A Christmas Story-like film from a child's point of view somehow became a glum midlife tragedy that would do well between Oprah reruns on Lifetime.
Wildly inconsistent in tone and point of view, torn between grim and sitcom-silly acting styles, slathered with a frosting of pop-psych self-help clichés, it's the film equivalent of the jarring car crash that sets the story in motion.
As absorbingly weird and dark and sad as the film becomes, it still labors against jumpy construction, an irritating variety of visual styles and film stocks, and a crowded story.
About all that unifies the movie is its inclination to turn little people's dreams into limply 'affectionate' camp.
Forgive the occasional forays into schmaltz-land as Marilyn Hotchkiss shows us how to dance, and love, in spite of it all.
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