Thirty-something-year-old ex Broadway chorus boy Michael has run out of options and is down on his luck and the only job he can get is teaching old ladies to dance. There are plenty of them here in sunny Florida and all of them are looking for ways to pass their time in their twilight years. His first client is feisty 75 year old wealthy widow Lily, but the two of them take an instant dislike to each other the moment he arrives at her oceanside apartment.With a very short fuse on his temper combined with a natural talent to put his foot into his mouth every time he speaks, Michael is quickly shown the door by Lily, or the ‘tight assed old biddy’ as he called her. She is furious enough to go to the Dance Academy where he works to cancel her lessons and intends to get him fired too. However with some very nimble footwork he talks himself into getting a second chance. Then later he has to repeat this to get a third chance and a fourth etc right up to the sixth and last lesson.
Every time the pair meet they squabble like a pair of kids and take it in turns to be the aggrieved party until they kiss and make up yet again. Much of the agreements are about nothing of any real consequence, but then again neither is this movie either. Throw in a nosey neighbor who constantly complains, and the predictable discovery of Michael’s tough past and Lily’s uncertain future (she’s ill), and that is about the full sum of it all.
It is excruciatingly unfunny with a script that is embarrassingly lame in parts that turns grins into grimaces. The saddest part of it all is that the movie stars Hollywood royalty in the form of Gina Rowlands in one of her rare screen performances these days. Even her creditable valiant efforts could not turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.
Cheyenne Jackson as Michael has the tough job of being tough on the old lady and simply fails to do it. He just cannot play mean. He at least was not quite so miscast as poor Julian Sands who is sadly so painfully uncomfortable being the penny-pinching bitter Dance Academy Owner. The cast is completed by Oscar winner Rita Moreno as the neighbor who has no life and equally no good lines too, and Jacqui Weaver as Irene who takes her time realizing that she is never going to get her hands down (obviously gay) Michaels pants!Adapted from what was a successful play that even ran on Broadway for a while before becoming a hit regularly performed by repertory companies. I can only assume therefore that although it was adapted by its author Richard Alfieri that something somehow got lost on the way to the silver screen.
P.S. If you really need a fix of seeing the wonderful Ms Rowlands , then instead rent ‘Gloria’ or ‘A Woman Under The Infuence’, both written and directed by her late husband John Cassavetes.
