John Clark learns to dance!

A beautiful family, a successful corporate lawyer, a charming wife and a loving family…a family, that stays together, learns together, laughs together and maybe cries together too! Each member of the family is intertwined with the other in complete harmony. That’s the beautiful Clark family in the movie “Shall we dance.”

I am not a cinema buff or a critique of sort, but this movie just struck the cord somewhere…

Did I fall in love with the handsome Richard Gere, or is it the perfect figure of J Lo, or is it the familiarity of the family set up….

At a glance the life looked so complete; it is where everything happens with the clock. John Clark takes the 9AM train to work, never having missed it! Co passengers sometimes known, often unknown, but they sure share a smile, as they all seem to be on the same mission, to reach the workplace on time. Beverly, the charming wife, not only is immaculate in her style but has an immaculate home too! An orderly kitchen, a full to the brim larder, a sparkling home, a blooming garden and a well stocked refrigerator, and a successful career! The daughter, a disciplined school kid, always ready to extend a helping hand to the mom.

As I continued to watch the movie I got engrossed in the familiarity of most homes I know…where we all love to walk the tight rope, or maybe waltz the tight rope. Well educated, well paying jobs, immaculate homes..Good children…wellness homes!

Just when I was settling down with the idea that like the Clark family we earn enough, we live enough, we love enough… the frame shifts to John getting back from work through Chicago, and his eyes fall on a beautiful woman staring out of the window of a dance studio. Following that evening, every next evening he watches the beautiful woman staring with a lost expression through the window of a dance studio. Haunted by her gaze, John impulsively jumps off the train one night, and signs up for ballroom dancing lessons, hoping to meet her. Unfortunately the beautiful lady, Paulina, played by Jlo is not his dance instructor.

The unhappy John, now enrolled into Ballroom dancing, feels it is a mistake, but continues his lessons. John proves to be overtly clumsy on the dance floor, tripping and falling time and again, gasping for breath at other times. But, as his lessons continue, John falls in love with dancing. He realizes that he might not be a good dancer, but sure he is a passionate dancer. He is a happy man, with a sudden burst of energy, secretly practicing his dance steps in his 20th floor plush office, sometimes escaping into the rest room to do a quick salsa step! But weirdly, for reasons keeps his new obsession away from his family! Maybe it was guilt of doing something just for himself, his own joy, he thinks that the mission of a man his age should at all times be “A happy family” where there is no space left to pursue individual interest!

(Now that sounds familiar around the “wellness homes” I know…. I continue to watch…)

Despite such feelings John feverishly trains for Chicago’s biggest dance competition. But the more time John spends away from home, the more his wife Beverly gets suspicious. She hires a private investigator to find out what John is doing, but when she finds out the truth, the caring Beverly chooses to discontinue the investigation and not invade her husband’s privacy.

The Chicago dance competition does not end up as a success as John suddenly hears his daughter cheering him from the gallery! He is shocked, nervous and misses his dance steps and unable to match steps with his partner in the waltz they fall. The story continues with John quitting dance. He resumes his routine life, the 9AM train to work and back, but he realizes the missing zest in his life…what is it? He never forgets to look out of the speeding rail…the window of “Miss Mitzy’s Ballroom Dance Studio.”

Ah! there, I get the connect, why I have been so engaged in the movie…..not only is the family set up familiar, so is the thinking of John Clark. That we must at all times forget the self before the family. We do not realize the importance of having a personal space, a hobby, a passion for something that is in an avocation…like John most of us are happy with the set routine of life, the clockwork! That’s wonderful! To have control over one’s own life, to live for today and plan for tomorrow..but maybe many of us are yet to taste that zest for life, have forgotten the child like excitement, that bubble of joy that comes when maybe we play a good game of golf, maybe give the final touches to a painting, maybe walk the streets to capture the color and chaos through the lens, maybe work towards a blooming garden, maybe engage in a social cause or like John Clark learn to dance!!!

John in one of his last dialogues with his wife says “One thing that I am proud of in my life is you are happy and if I could not tell you that I am unhappy sometimes is for the fear of hurting you.” Beverly is left speechless, for she never came in way of John’s interests…or did John have any other interest apart from being a successful attorney?

Do we all think like John? Are we all like Beverly?

Well, if not all, there is many a John I know and many a Beverly too….

The movie ends with John going back to the dance school and often enjoys an after dinner waltz with Beverly in the kitchen! Hmmm….perfect!!!

John gets back the spring in his step, as he runs down the stairs of the metro station! His eyes have that extra zing, his life has that extra ounce of energy, he has a musical rhythm in his life, he is once again young at heart… such is effect of his passion!!

If we, the Clarks of today, want that extra ounce in life…and aren’t as lucky as John to accidentally discover the passion, then let us find time to look back into our past, what we loved doing when life was not a routine, maybe cultivate a crazy love, a mad passion….that relaxes the body and the soul….and dance through the waltz called life!

And….Like Beverly, all the Beverly I know will appreciate and love the positive energy that comes with this waltz…

“.We shall still be together with our arms around each other………shall we dance, shall we dance…shall we dance!”