MARILYN HOTCHKISS' BALLROOM DANCING & CHARM SCHOOL

US, 2006, 104 minutes, Colour.
Robert Carlyle, John Goodman, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Eldon Henson, Sean Aston, Danny DeVito?, Cameron Mannheim, Octavia Spencer,
Directed by Randall Miller.

Ballroom dancing films are cropping up more frequently.

In the Strictly Ballroom tradition, there have been the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom about teaching primary school children dancing as a way of increasing their self-esteem and social skills. Then there was the feature film based on this story, but making the children seniors in school, with Antonio Banderas in Take the Lead. After that, Step Up. In the meantime, what has Marilyn Hotchkiss to teach us?

Marilyn Hotchkiss ran a small dance school in the early 1960s in Pasadena. Earnest mothers sent their 12 year olds to her lessons so that their children could become better-mannered and learn, as Marilyn Hotchkiss put it in the title of her school, some ‘charm’.

We actually learn this from a dying man. John Goodman portrays Steve Mills whom we first see overtaking a bread delivery van (driven by Frank Keane, played by Robert Carlyle) in the mountains. He crashes and the ambulance people tell Frank to keep Steve conscious by talking with him. Steve confides that he is on his way to keep an appointment from forty years earlier, that he will meet Lisa Gobar at the school on 5-05-05.

The film’s action keeps moving backwards and forwards. It visualises the kids in 1962, playing British Bulldog as they chased and bashed into each other, their transformation through the dance classes and Steve’s growing infatuation with Lisa. It also shows us Frank standing in for Steve and searching for Lisa at the school now run by Marianne Hotchkiss (a very gracefully dancing Mary Steenburgen), Marilyn’s daughter.

The classes are run very formally but Frank finds a new home, a sympathetic partner, Meredith (Marisa Tomei) who is chaperoned rather possessively (and violently) by her stepbrother, Randall (Donnie Wahlburg).

It should be said that Frank, while being a fine baker, is a rather inarticulate widower who attends group sessions of similarly grieving men (with some amusing and poignant scenes of their discussions).

Frank’s life is transformed. He gradually lets go of his obsessive grieving, discovers how light he is on his feet, appreciates his growth in both ballroom dancing and charm.

What makes our response to the characters more complex is that Frank continually remembers his conversation with Steve and we see Steve’s childhood memories as he tells Frank his story.

Where audiences will enjoy the film, not only with the frequent dance sequences, is with the range of characters who turn up week after week for their lessons. After Randall acts violently towards Frank, he is forbidden to come to the school. He explains that this weekly class is the happiest time in his life, that this is his world. While we don’t get to know all the characters, we see the school as their haven. As might be expected, the widowers all follow Frank’s example and the dance seems better therapy than all the talk.

This is not a great film. Rather it is a nice one. It emphasises how much grief there is in the world and how, as the dying Steve reminisces, we take wrong turns, left when we should have gone right (and there is a bit of a twist at the end when we learn who Steve really is). It also reminds us that there is some decency in everyone if only they had the opportunity to show it.

There is a fate (which we would call providence) insofar as Frank is at the scene of Steve’s crash and his simple act of ringing for the ambulance and travelling in it, listening and asking questions, is the means of transforming his life.

This is a film for older audiences and the old-fashioned, whatever their age.

1. A pleasing drama? Humane film? Dance film? The focus on the title?

2. The Los Angeles settings, the locations, streets and homes, the baker? The ballroom and the interiors? The musical score, the dance music?

3. The focus on Frank, the death of his wife, his work as a baker, the effect of the death, depression? The car accident, the encounter with Steve? Steve asking him to contact the friend? Going to the ballroom? The friend not there?

4. Steve’s story, the accident, his friend, plot going back to his childhood? The building up of his character?

5. The strong cast, the many prestige supporting players? Mary Steenburgen and the title of the film?

6. Frank, his meeting Meredith, thinking Randall her boyfriend, Randall as a bully, the rivalry? Randall as Meredith’s step brother? Frank, liking the music and the dancing, his therapy group? The therapy helping him to make a stance?

7. The range of different members of the group? Their characters, interactions? Coming to the ballroom, participation?

8. The audience finding out more and more about Frank, the death of his wife, the suicide, his feeling guilty?

9. Frank and Meredith, her explaining Randall, the violent father? The bond between the two? The dancing, the relationship?

10. The issue of the ashes, Frank seeking out Steve’s friend, the seeming indifference to receiving the ashes – but the glimpse of the tear?

11. Frank, as a character, his development, coming out of himself, Meredith, the relationships? A nice film?