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This film is a remake of a Japanese film that I have not seen as of yet. However, I have a feeling the setting will make a big difference in my take on the original.

The American version moves the film from Japan to Chicago. John Clark (Richard Gere, CHICAGO) is an insurance salesman who doesn’t really demand much from life, but seems to be lacking something. He loves his hard-working wife Beverly (Susan Sarandon, ATLANTIC CITY) and his children Jenna (Tamara Hope, THE DEEP END) and Evan (Stark Sands, CATCH THAT KID). However, one night on the train ride home, John glimpses Paulina (Jennifer Lopez, ANGEL EYES) in the window of Miss Mitzi’s dance school, looking as sad as he feels.

John sees her again another evening and decides to get off the train and check out the school. He ends up signing up for dance lessons. His class is run by Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette, BOB ROBERTS) and includes Chic (Bobby Cannavale, THE STATION AGENT), who is taking lessons to pick up chics, and Vern (Omar Benson Miller, 8 MILE), who is taking lessons to impress his fiancée. Always at the school is flamboyant Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter, BRUCE ALMIGHTY) and Link (Stanley Tucci, THE BIG NIGHT), a man from John’s work, who secretly loves to dance, but presents himself as a sports fan to fit in.

The film is filled with humorous supporting characters, even if Tucci is chewing more scenery than the termites. But the heart of the film is the midlife crisis issues that John and Beverly deal with. The film deals with John’s feelings for Paulina and Beverly’s attraction to private eye Devine (Richard Jenkins, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY), who she hires to follow her husband, in a mature and believable way.

The film is sweet and sentimental, but not in a bad way. At its core, the film is about rekindling joy in one’s life – and what’s wrong with that.