This is such a nice, funny little movie that one forgives it all sorts of flaws. The characters are quirky and amusing, there are many effective scenes, and Naoto Takenaka as Mr. Aoki is incredibly funny. The overall experience is very enjoyable, and I recommend the movie.
What keeps this from being a truly great comedy is a laziness in character development in motivation. Now, some things might make sense in Japanese society that wouldn't make sense here, like actually being able to disappear evenings and weekends without your wife saying anything, so I won't complain about that. But other things in the movie are just lazily sketched out. Mai's attitude change in the movie comes almost out of nowhere, and like a lot of movies Shall We Dance relies on the fact that people have seen certain plot elements so often that they will accept them as valid even if the movie makes no real effort to explore a character. It's a pet peeve of mine.
But it doesn't ruin the movie, because it's funny and likable.
I was pretty surprised to see in the movie that dancing was frowned upon in Japan, since I'd heard swing dancing was quite popular there. I asked my swing dance teacher, who is from Japan, and she tells me some dancing is popular among the young, but it's done more as a sport or physical activity than as a social dance, and people stop when they get older and it's not really proper to dance again until you're old (she said it's fine to dance if you're 75). I'd be curious to know if this movie had any effect on that attitude.
What keeps this from being a truly great comedy is a laziness in character development in motivation. Now, some things might make sense in Japanese society that wouldn't make sense here, like actually being able to disappear evenings and weekends without your wife saying anything, so I won't complain about that. But other things in the movie are just lazily sketched out. Mai's attitude change in the movie comes almost out of nowhere, and like a lot of movies Shall We Dance relies on the fact that people have seen certain plot elements so often that they will accept them as valid even if the movie makes no real effort to explore a character. It's a pet peeve of mine.
But it doesn't ruin the movie, because it's funny and likable.
I was pretty surprised to see in the movie that dancing was frowned upon in Japan, since I'd heard swing dancing was quite popular there. I asked my swing dance teacher, who is from Japan, and she tells me some dancing is popular among the young, but it's done more as a sport or physical activity than as a social dance, and people stop when they get older and it's not really proper to dance again until you're old (she said it's fine to dance if you're 75). I'd be curious to know if this movie had any effect on that attitude.