Shall We Dance?
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Chelsom
Screenplay by	Audrey Wells
Based on	Shall We Dance? 1996 film by Masayuki Suo
Produced by	Simon Fields
Starring	Richard Gere Jennifer Lopez Susan Sarandon Stanley Tucci Lisa Ann Walter Richard Jenkins Bobby Cannavale Omar Miller Mýa Harrison Ja Rule Nick Cannon
Cinematography	John de Borman
Edited by	Robert Leighton
Music by	Gabriel Yared John Altman
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date	October 15, 2004 (2004-10-15) (United States)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$170.1 million

Shall We Dance? is a 2004 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Peter Chelsom and starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon. It is a remake of the 1996 Japanese film of the same name.^[1]

John Clark Richard Gere is a lawyer at a Chicago, Illinois law firm. He has a wife named Beverly Susan Sarandon, who is a buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue a teenage daughter Jenna Tamara Hope, and an adult son Evan Stark Sands, who nevertheless feels that something is missing as he makes his way everyday through the city. Each night on his way home while riding the El train, John sees a young and beautiful woman staring with a lost expression on her face through the window of a dance studio called Miss Mitzi's Dance School. Haunted by her gaze, John impulsively jumps off the train one night and signs up for ballroom dancing lessons, hoping to meet her.

At first, it seems like a mistake. His teacher turns out not to be the woman in the window, Paulina Jennifer Lopez, but in fact, the studio's owner, Miss Mitzi, and John proves to be just as clumsy as his equally clueless classmates Chic Bobby Cannavale and Vern Omar Benson Miller on the dance floor. Even worse, when he does meet Paulina, she icily tells John she hopes he has come to the studio to seriously study dance and not look for a date. As his lessons continue, John ends up falling in love with dancing.

Keeping his new obsession from his family and co-workers, John feverishly trains for Chicago's biggest dance competition. His friendship with Paulina blossoms, as his enthusiasm rekindles her own lost passion for dance, but the more time John spends away from home, the more his wife Beverly becomes more suspicious. She hires Mr. Devine Richard Jenkins, a private investigator to find out what John is up to. Mr. Devine sends his colleague Scottie Nick Cannon out to follow John a couple of times. When Beverly finds out the truth, she chooses to discontinue the investigation and not to invade her husband's privacy.

John is partnered with Bobbie Lisa Ann Walter for the competition, although his friend and co-worker Link Stanley Tucci steps in to do the Latin dances while John will handle the quickstep and waltz. Link and Bobbie do well in the Latin dances, and while the John and Bobbie's waltz seems to go off well, John hears his daughter, Jenna, in the crowd cheering him on and gets distracted by trying to find them. Once he finds them, John and Bobbie accidentally bump into another couple making Bobbie fall to the floor. As Bobbie prepares to stand up, John doesn't realize his foot is on her skirt and as she comes to her feet, her skirt is ripped off showing her undergarments. She runs off the stage crying. John and Bobbie are disqualified from the competition due to this. Beverly and Jenna get up out of their seats and races to the garage in hopes to leave before John catches up to them. Once in the parking garage, John catches up to his wife and daughter and they argue for a few minutes before Beverly gets in the car and takes off. To everyone's dismay, John ends up quitting dance.

After a few days, John and Link overhear their co-workers making fun of Link because of who he is. When Link comes out, he grabs a female co-worker's hand and spins her around a couple of times before sitting her back down in her chair. No one says anything anymore.

Paulina, having been inspired by John to take up competing again, is leaving to go to Europe, and is having a going-away party at a local dance studio. She sends an invitation to John, but he isn't convinced to go until his wife leaves out a pair of dancing shoes she bought for him with a card that read, "I finally found something you want that fits in a box." John goes and meets Beverly at work, convinces her that while he loves dancing, he still loves her just as much, and he teaches her to dance. They go to the party where John and Paulina have one last dance before she leaves.

The end scene shows everyone afterwards; Link and Bobbie are now dating, Chic, (who is actually gay), dances at a night club with his partner, Miss Mitzi finds a new partner, and they are happy together; John and Beverly are happier than ever and are found dancing in their kitchen; Vern, newly married to his fiancée Lisa Mýa are dancing together at their wedding; Mr. Devine (the private investigator that Beverly hired) starts taking up dance lessons; and Paulina, with a new partner, competes at the Blackpool Dance Festival, the competition that she had lost the previous year, and ends up winning the competition.

1. "Sway" - The Pussycat Dolls
2. "Santa Maria" (Del Buen Ayre) - Gotan Project
3. "Happy Feet" - John Altman
4. "España cañí" - John Altman
5. "I Wanna (Shall We Dance)" - Gizelle D'Cole
6. "Perfidia" - John Altman
7. "Under The Bridges Of Paris" - John Altman
8. "Moon River" - John Altman
9. "Andalucia" - John Altman
10. "The Book Of Love" - Peter Gabriel
11. "The L Train" - Gabriel Yared
12. "I Could Have Danced All Night" - Jamie Cullum
13. "Wonderland" - Rachel Fuller
14. "Shall We Dance?" - Gotan Project
15. "Let's Dance" - Mýa

The film debuted on October 15, 2004, grossing $11,783,467 in its opening weekend, placing fourth at the North American box office. Despite its 27% decline in gross earnings, it rose to the third spot the following week. The film ran for 133 days, grossing $57,890,460 in the United States and $112,238,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $170,128,460.^[2]

Shall We Dance? received a 47% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 158 critics. The consensus states: "The cast is warmly appealing, but with the loss of cultural context and addition of big-name celebrities, this American version loses the nuances of the original."^[3] Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating "I enjoyed the Japanese version so much I invited it to my Overlooked Film Festival a few years ago, but this remake offers pleasures of its own."^[4]

The original Japanese film had a question mark in its title, and the publicity poster for this film also includes it. However, the actual film titles on the US film appear as simply "Shall We Dance", leading to some online sources, including IMDb, referring to it without showing the question mark. The inclusion of the question mark serves to distinguish these two films from the 1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Shall We Dance.

• Official website
• Shall We Dance? at IMDb 
• Shall We Dance? at AllMovie
• Shall We Dance? at Box Office Mojo
• Shall We Dance? at Rotten Tomatoes
• Shall We Dance? at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Shall We Dance? at the TCM Movie Database