Shall We Dance

The scribes still haven't forgotten that Aussie gem, and so they shouldn't!

In Japanese with subtitles, Shall We Dance tells of a middle aged fellow expressing his mid-life crisis with a touch of quick step. Yes there is a girl involved, a pretty younger woman he saw in a dancing studio window, but his dancing stumbles become much more than a just a clumsy, vague lunge away towards a beautiful younger woman from the boredom of his mortgage, his wife and child and his staid workaholic life.

He learns to love, or at least become obsessed with, ballroom dancing!

If there is a touch of Strictly Ballroom in Shall We Dance, there's also a smattering of The Full Monty or even that Japanese comedy Sumo film of a few years ago Sumo Do, Sumo Don't, because the other hopefuls at the dance studio aren't all willowy, quick toed dance whizzes.

If The Full Monty has a fatty so has Shall We Dance, and conversely Sumo Do, Sumo Don't sported a skinny sumo wrestler (with diarrhoea!) Yes Shall We Dance revels in the misfits, the two left footers of ballroom dancers and that's both appealing and consoling for those amongst us who can't heal and toe.

Does the boy get the girl? I won't tell you, but rest assured that there is a convincingly staged dance final and a happy ending. But in spite of the considerable charms of Shall We Dance, I'm still unlikely to troop off to dancing lessons.