Dance With Me
Escapism from Houston
Dance has local angles but an unimaginative story
By Skylaire Alfvegren - Houston Press: Published: August 20, 1998
Cuba is populated with eternally smiling, dancing multicultural peasants. Communism looks like a lot of fun, with street musicians and festive mamacitas on every corner. You wonder why someone would want to leave such a fab place. This Disneyland version of Latin life follows Rafael to America, where it's all paper flowers, steamy dancing and the Queen's English for the expatriate Cubanos he meets.
Ah, but things generally lean toward the superficial in romances. There are never any villains, except for the slinky man-stealer or spurned ex. The latter appears in Dance with Me in the form of Ruby's slimy ex-partner, Julian.
And the women are aloof, yet passionate just beneath the surface. In Dance with Me, director Randa Haines pulls out her favorite plot device. She specializes in characters with tough exteriors (Marlee Matlin as Sarah Norman in Children of a Lesser God, William Hurt as an unfeeling surgeon in The Doctor) blossoming as the result of a patient romancer or a sudden epiphany. But the viewer needn't be aware of that to predict where the chips will fall in Dance with Me.
"I don't want to be in love," says Ruby. Cue the quivering lips and furtive glances. Understatement is another element one associates with romances, simply because it's usually lacking. Both leads could've worked on their skill with subtlety.
The climax comes during the big international contest in Las Vegas where Ruby is competing with Julian in hopes that she'll regain her title. (Most enjoyable is her attempt to convey her yearning for Rafael while on stage.) The producers hired scads of professional dancers for the competition scenes, bringing a legitimacy to the film it might have lacked. The flashy moves and flashier costumes are a visual feast, though the competitions were shot in real time, adding considerable length to an otherwise breezily edited film. It feels like an attempt to squeeze all they could from what must have been an expensive shoot.
Needless to say, nothing terribly unexpected happens. Rafael is utterly faultless, about as close to Prince Charming as possible without owing royalties. And the Ice Queen comes around. All of which is what romance fans would probably want -- something cornier and more dramatic than real life. Though the film is not likely to chart at the Academy Awards, escapist entertainment like this has its niche at the box office, and probably always will.
Dance with Me.
Rated PG.
Directed by Randa Haines. Starring Vanessa Williams, Chayanne and Kris Kristofferson.
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