You won't be disappointed!

Touches You

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I'm ripping off another reviewer's title for "Lisbon Story" (the original "good for the soul" movie), but I can't think of a better description for "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School."I won't even get into the plot except to say that it's at times surprisingly dark, surprisingly uplifting, surprisingly tense, and just overall surprising. It deals with themes of devastating loss, rediscovery, pain, anger, violence, and confusion but in a way that gets your toes tapping to the Lindy Hop. Watch the movie, and that'll make sense.If you've gotten past the supercilious title, which doubtlessly scares off anyone in the mood for Saw VIII, and you've gotten as far as the 3rd paragraph of this review which includes supercilious words like "supercilious", then I think you'll get it. This is a movie which explores the veneer of charm which we often use to cloak a deeper ugliness in our lives. But it doesn't do it sarcastically; it actually points out how an occasional ballroom dance may, occasionally, be the cure for the horrors that we experience.It's no surprise that the filmmakers managed to snare an all star cast, because this is the kind of movie that actors (who aren't solely obsessed with money) would eagerly jump into. Award winning talent like John Goodman, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, and some of my personal favorites like Ernie Hudson (The Crow, Ghostbusters) and Donnie Wahlberg (the aforementioned Saw movies) as well as a cameo by Danny Devito really bring this story to life. And of course there's the main character played by Robert Carlyle, an actor whom I'm not familiar with but I'll forever remember his performance here.As for the dancing itself, no, it's not really a showcase of fancy footwork (for that, you should check out the awesome Aussie flick "Strictly Ballroom") although Donnie Wahlberg does some impressive moves as the hilarious cheeseball Baryshnikov wannabee who needs to button his shirt back above his navel. This is really a human story with elements of romcom, elements of tragedy, elements of suspense, and regardless of how it turns out "good for the soul."

It took a while for me to get a copy of the DVD but viewed Marilyn Hotchkiss today and I feel it has the possibilities of a Classic but felt it was over saturated with unrelated scenes, name actors, i.e. John Goodman, and Marisa Tomei and an unbelievably cheesy accident scene which distracted me from concentrating on the marvelous portrayals by Robert Carlyle, Sonja Braga, Elden Henson and Donnie Wahlberg. I felt there were much too many flashbacks of the nostalgia of childhood , which I found boring and superfluous and the bereavement/ therapy scenes were just included to add weight to the project, could have worked but none of the testimonials convinced me one iota of these men actually grieving. It make me wonder if it's the American Male or all Males who have trouble expressing grief and heartbreak without trepidation.Pity, I waited 06 months to view this film because the synopsis, which sounded appealing and has universal appeal, however, It's like the old proverb, "When too much cargo is placed in craft, all sinks to the bottom."

*Warning - no plot spoilers ahead, but movie spoilers nonetheless...* My significant other rented this for me thinking it would be a terrific romance with an all-star cast. Wow - very, very wrong. This movie is an overdone, overwrought, and overly sentimental excuse to theatrically release a student film 15 years after it was shot! The copyright date on the box said 2005, yet during the very first flashback sequence I was looking at the clothes and hairdos that were supposed to be the early 1960s, and noticed that the girls especially were wearing late 80s/early 90s dresses and hairdos. It looked as if it had been shot a good 15 or 20 years before the rest of the film! I tried to convenience myself that it was a flashback, and therefore supposed to look old, but it looked WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY more 80s than 60s or even 21st century trying to be 60s... then an adult coworker of the lead character turns up, and he looks just like the boy featured in the flashback sequences (yet it's a different, much older character whose youth is featured in the flashbacks). I was completely confused until I saw in the special features the short film included - it was all the flashback sequences, shot in 1990 as a complete student film of the same title as this movie! It also features commentary that includes the little boy all grown up (and indeed acting the co-worker in the 2005 scenes). Thus, this movie is just a shell of story woven around an old, re-cut student film put together as an obvious excuse to get it up to theatrical running time. The shell story, shot in 2005, is mostly about a man who has lost his wife and finds healing and redemption at the dance class that he promises a dying man he will attend in his stead (something about a promise made by the dying man in the early 60's to his girl that they would meet on the "fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the new millennium - an excuse to shoot the segments around the old film in 2005?) These new scenes and plot might have been OK except the awful, overly sentimental score that repeats ad nauseum over almost every single new scene and the clichéd action that permeates the new movie. Don't bother. There's a reason why you've never heard of this movie even though it has a well-known cast - it's terrible.

Whatever the impetus for writer/director Randall Miller to recreate his 1990 film on the same subject, this little low budget film has the sense of commitment and love on the part of everyone associated with it. Be warned that this is a hankie film and that if you don't have a tolerance (or a fondness) for tearjerkers, then best avoid this one. But for those who enjoy a look at the changes that loss and discovery and love can impact a disparate group of characters' lives, this is a sweet little movie.The basic premise is how caring for others can positively affect one's own world view. Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle) is a baker in a family shop, a quiet man who is trying to recover from his wife's unexplained suicide and for consolation he is in group therapy with other grieving men (David Paymer is the leader of a group that includes Sean Astin, Adam Arkin, Ernie Hudson, Miguel Sandoval). On a routine delivery run, Frank witness a car crash in which Steve Mills (John Goodman) is critically injured. Feeling helpless, Frank calls the paramedics who respond and tell him to keep Steve talking. And talk Steve does, pleading with Frank to go to a ballroom dance session to which he promised a young girl he would attend 40 years ago when a child. Frank does attend Marilyn Hotchkiss (Patricia Fraser) Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, feels out of place at first, but gradually warms to the message of now-owner Marienne Hotchkiss (Mary Steenburgen), meets an abused Meredith (Marisa Tomei), her abuser Randall Ipswich (Donnie Wahlberg), and fellow dancers including Sonja Braga et al. Through the miracle of dance (and through a lot of flashbacks from car accident to Steve's childhood, etc) conflicts resolve. The ending is cluttered by events unnecessary to the story but seemingly inserted to make use of the talents of Danny DeVito and Camryn Manheim. But by the time this fluff is added we have already been enchanted with the bumpy road tale and can forgive about anything.This little unpretentious movie has an endearing style and is populated with some superb actors who seem committed to the project. Many of the 'little things' (Hotchkiss' gradual variation in costume, the DJ "Freeway" (uncredited), and the quality of outside vs interior photography) come to mind in retrospect and make the memory of this evening of borderline saccharine story even more of a treasure. Grady Harp