'Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing' takes some odd steps
by Hap Erstein

There is an art to selecting movie titles, as Randall Miller well understands. This director/co-writer calls his first feature Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School, a title that suggests a good-time movie slathered with whimsy. Mind you, he could have called it Potentially Fatal Car Accident and Grief Support Group Film and been just as accurate, but surely that would have cut his box office by a significant amount. This quirky, not always convincing, but ultimately successful film does draw on the transformative-power-of-dance movies (Shall We Dance?, Mad Hot Ballroom) as well as the group-therapy-to-help-us-start-living-again flicks (Boynton Beach Club) and merges them into a whole loaded with peculiar touches. Read the full review

TO SUM UP
Acting as a good samaritan, a widowed baker comes to the aid of man who is near death after an automobile collision and ends up trying to find the accident victim's long lost childhood love.

FILM FACTS ...
Samuel Goldwyn Films
'Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School'

Director: Randall M. Miller
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Astin, John Goodman, Danny DeVito, Donnie Wahlberg
Run time: 103 minutes
Release date: March 31, 2006
Rating: PG-13 for mature situations, language.
See showtimes

Blast from the past
Portraying a dance teacher was just a trip back to her childhood for actress Mary Steenburgen.

On the web
Official movie site

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The Palm Beach Post: B-
"This is a film you are likely to either buy into and find moving or stay outside of its emotional pull and walk away indifferent to it."


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