This business of folded narrative is never so poignant as when the situations of real life are layered into a film. If you come to this just for the fictitious thread and literal presentation, you will be disappointed. It just doesn't have juice. We have an hour and a half of repetitious angst with no change, no new angles. Things just plod.
There is some nice dancing by extras playing the troupe and these sections are lighted creatively. When we see the three main characters, they are dance-acting, showing emotion associated with the story.
But if you encompass the whole, and allow for three layers (the real life of the actors, the story of the movie and the "story" in the dance), then you have something so endearing it hurts.
We have Swayze and his wife. They met as teens in his mother's dance studio, married and have lived a partnership within the context of dance. They clearly love each other, and do so within a physical language that is partly public, but which has decades of secret motions, seeded and harvested.
After a long marriage, she decides to make a film. It is a valentine for her man. It is a celebration of a relationship in dance. It is — I believe — to satisfy the desire to perform their love, not so that anyone need see it, but because the private intercourse demands it.
So what does she do? She writes a story about aging dancers, estranged lovers who have conflated their fears and desires for dancing with their fears and desires for each other. As they dance, they reconnect in the love. The name of the difficult dance they are revisiting is heavily named "Without a Word." It is a simple, pure, lovely idea, and it touched me deeply. The idea.
These are not good actors. They are good dancers but not great ones. Many scenes have them pretending to be better dances than they actually are but hobbled by age so the moves are more clumsy than they can achieve. It is a strange acting challenge and I suggest the movie has merits on this score alone.
It also is an entry in my list of films where the director is in love with the main actor. Usually, it is an older man and a hypnotically beautiful younger woman in the early, obsessive stages of romance. This is quite, quite different.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
There is some nice dancing by extras playing the troupe and these sections are lighted creatively. When we see the three main characters, they are dance-acting, showing emotion associated with the story.
But if you encompass the whole, and allow for three layers (the real life of the actors, the story of the movie and the "story" in the dance), then you have something so endearing it hurts.
We have Swayze and his wife. They met as teens in his mother's dance studio, married and have lived a partnership within the context of dance. They clearly love each other, and do so within a physical language that is partly public, but which has decades of secret motions, seeded and harvested.
After a long marriage, she decides to make a film. It is a valentine for her man. It is a celebration of a relationship in dance. It is — I believe — to satisfy the desire to perform their love, not so that anyone need see it, but because the private intercourse demands it.
So what does she do? She writes a story about aging dancers, estranged lovers who have conflated their fears and desires for dancing with their fears and desires for each other. As they dance, they reconnect in the love. The name of the difficult dance they are revisiting is heavily named "Without a Word." It is a simple, pure, lovely idea, and it touched me deeply. The idea.
These are not good actors. They are good dancers but not great ones. Many scenes have them pretending to be better dances than they actually are but hobbled by age so the moves are more clumsy than they can achieve. It is a strange acting challenge and I suggest the movie has merits on this score alone.
It also is an entry in my list of films where the director is in love with the main actor. Usually, it is an older man and a hypnotically beautiful younger woman in the early, obsessive stages of romance. This is quite, quite different.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.