Peter Chelsom's Shall We Dance?

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Peter Chelsom's Shall We Dance? (Miramax, 10.15) is not a Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez romance-on-a-dance-floor movie. It's a Chelsom-esque ensemble piece a la Hear My Song. It's Gere, Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter, The Station Agent's Bobby Cannavale, Anita Gillette, Richard Jenkins...they're all in it together. Lopez plays an intriguing but essentially support-level character for the first hour...no character deepening, no romantic intrigues with Gere, nothing. Then she and Gere start paying attention to each other at the start of the second hour...but they don't become the movie. (Was her screen time reduced, as it was in Jersey Girl, when Miramax realized that her Bennifer-generated negatives were going through the roof?) Gere's performance as an estate lawyer nursing a secret passion for after-dark ballroom dancing is assured and charismatic, and he gives off genuine dignity and delight when he dances -- you can see it really turns him on. Tucci is a total live wire as Gere's fellow office worker who's also a nocturnal ballroomer. He's so good you wish he had more scenes. (He did, actually, but they had to be sacrificed.) Pic was shot in Winnipeg, and Manitoba-native Len Cariou played Richard Gere's boss, but his entire role ended up on the cutting room floor....too bad.