Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School |  | Director: Randall Miller
Actors: Robert Carlyle, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, John Goodman, Elden Henson
Studio: Sony Pictures
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $1.39
as of 3/17/2010 17:58 CDT details
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New (36) from $4.82
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Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 9684
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D15162D
UPC: 043396151628
EAN: 0043396151628
ASIN: B000FDFSGI
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: July 4, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
When lonely hearts want to connect, is there any better way, really, than dancing? Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School is a sweet indie valentine to dance, and to the connection of lost, broken souls. The stellar cast is led by English Everyguy Robert Carlyle, a widower who believes he's fulfilling a dying man's last wish--to find a long-lost love--by showing up at a Thursday night dance class. Carlyle is by turns awkward, warm, sincere and bewildered, perfectly believable as a man awash in grief yet hoping to rejoin life. It turns out that dance class, led by the theatrical Mary Steenburgen, holds his lifeline. Other strong performances come from Marisa Tomei, Sean Astin, John Goodman, Ernie Hudson, David Paymer, Camryn Manheim and Sonia Braga, all of whom play people yearning for something, some one. Viewers may get distracted early in the film, seeing Carlyle in a dance venue and secretly hoping the soundtrack would queue up "You Sexy Thing," to get to see Carlyle reprise some of his fabulous shtick from The Full Monty. But it turns out Carlyle is just as winning performing the Lindy Hop or waltz. And, the film suggests, once the body moves and the soul is stirred--can love be far behind? The answer is: May I have the honor of this dance? Extras include the short 1990 film this feature was based on and an audio commentary. --A.T. Hurley
Product Description
FRANK KEANE IS A BAKER BY TRADE BUT NOW A MAN CONSUMED BY HIS WIFE'S DEATH. WHEN FATE INTERVENES, HE PULLS OVER TO HELP A STRANGER IN A CAR WRECK, A MAN NEAR DEATH WHO URGENTLY DISCLOSESA PLANNED REUNION, A MEETING WITH A LOST CHILDHOOD LOVE AT ASCHOOL FOR BALLROOM DANCE.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
 "No Form, No Difinition, No Beginning, No End" ~ Dancing the Demons Within July 23, 2006
Brian E. Erland (Brea, CA - USA)
30 out of 35 found this review helpful
What guy in his right mind would want to watch a movie titled, 'Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School?' The name absolutely shrieks out the warning, "CHICK FLICK!" If you're like me and thought that, you'd be wrong.
This is an insightful tale of personal choices and how the choices we make effect the path we travel in life. Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle), recently widowed, is driving his bakery truck along a deserted stretch of highway when he comes upon the scene of a horrible accident. He calls 911 and is told to keep the injured motorist talking until they arrive. The name of the injured driver is Steve Mills (John Goodman) who was rushing to an important appointment made thirty-five years ago with his grammar school sweetheart. They had both vowed to meet on the 5th day of the 5th month of the new millenium at Marilyn Hotchkiss' Charm School. When Steve finally realizes he'll never be able to keep his promise he asks Frank to keep the appointment for him. Frank honors Steve's last request and in doing so changes the course of his life forever.
On the outside we discover a sweet, nostalgic, disarming film, funny at times, poignant and bittersweet at others. However on a deeper level we discover the storyline serves as a metaphor of spiritual awakening. The ballroom is the world and the coming together to dance is how one chooses or refuses to embrace life. As Miss Hotchkiss says, "Dance is a very powerful drug."
The cast is terrific, especially Robert Carlyle, Marisa Tomei, Donnie Wahlberg and John Goodman.
OK, maybe it's kind of a chick flick. But it's a great one!
 Bringing Heart Back Into Theaters July 2, 2006
becky mussa (los angeles)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
i will admitt the tittle is strange but that does no justice to this fantastic story----movies usually have action violence,and no substance but this movie feels so like its from the heart of love in every aspect --there is more emotion and geniune feeling in this movie then of the last ten years of filmaking---i cried and fell in love with every charactor --i dont want to reveal the story but lets just say a man has been jailed half his life dreaming of meeting his child hood sweet heart at a dance school--and he is released just in time to make his appointment--then the great story begins---please watch it and let it move you as it did me----i need a passionate man like that----worth every penny
A Real Sleeper May 29, 2006
William R. O'connell (New York)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
If I came across the title or synopsis I probably wouldn't have gone to see this film. It was part of a package at the Stony Brook Film Festival last year and I have to say it was one of the best there. It's the story of a con who gets out of prison (John Goodman) who is on a mission to keep a date he made while an adolescent. He is sure that his childhood sweetheart will be there. For reasons that I won't disclose, he will not be able to keep his date so enlists a chance bystander (Robert Carlisle) to go in his place. Carlisle wants nothing to do with it but doesn't have the heart to say no, nor say yes and then just not do it.
Carlisle has a boatload of his own problems to deal with and he is struggling with them mightily. It is an interesting mix of characters and the story unfolds nicely with a surprise finish. Give it a try.
Simply Marvelous November 28, 2006
Robert M. Penna (Albany, NY)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
"Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School," a 2005 Sundance Festival entry now available on DVD, is one of those independent films that make you wonder why you might ever waste even another five minutes on the drek the major studios put out these days.
Several stories are perfectly wrapped into this quiet, unassuming film, and, while each is inviting and engaging in its own right, together they form an exquisite package that charms and captivates, yet always maintains an underlying innocence and wit.
"Steve," played masterfully by John Goodman, is a man on a mission, hell-bent to make it to an appointment he made with his childhood sweetheart 40 years ago. With the innocence of first love, they had promised to meet on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the new millennium, and, moreover, to meet at the same dance school where they had once learned to waltz across the gulf that inescapably separates the genders. Sadly, when he is injured enroute in a traffic accident, it looks as though Steve might not make that appointment after all. But a passing Good Samaritan, played with understated perfection by Robert Carlyle, promises to fulfill Steve's mission, and so opens the rest of the film.
In keeping his promise, Mr. Carlyle's "Frank," a man with more than his own share of regrets, stumbles into a world of which he never dreamt, and possibilities he never suspected. And through his influence, in turn, a dozen other lives are similarly changed for the better.
The all-star cast, which in addition to Goodman and Carlyle includes Marisa Tomei, Donnie Wahlberg, Camryn Manheim, Ernie Hudson, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Astin, David Paymer, Adam Arkin, and Danny DeVito, is perfect. Little more need be said.
There are those who will dismiss this rare gem as either a chick flick or "just another dance movie." It is neither. Rather, it is a quiet surprise that inspires without contrivance, entertains effortlessly, and tells a number of stories worth remembering. It is not to be missed.
"Do you know the colour of magenta?" July 2, 2006
M. J Leonard (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
The oddly titled Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School is indeed a strange film which sometimes works and at other times doesn't. The film has an old fashioned sensibility, which is nice, but it also suffers from an overstuffed narrative featuring three different time frames. Not only do the events occur non-simultaneously, they also transpire at different paces, and the overall effect is a bit at odds with what the movie is trying to say.
The film, however, is largely entertaining, probably because director Randall Miller has managed to bring together a fine ensemble cast of top-notch actors to see his story through. Part fairy tale and part homage to the innocence of youth, the Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School revolves around the character of Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle), a working class baker, and a lost soul going through life on automatic pilot.
Frank is consumed by his wife's unexplained suicide; his closet is still full of her clothes, and he greets her ashes every morning, and attends meetings for men who have also lost their wives and are finding it hard to cope. Life is pretty awful at the moment, until one day on a delivery he stops beside a car accident. The man inside, Steve Mills (John Goodman), is crushed behind the wheel. To keep him alive, the normally shy Frank gets him to talk about his life.
Apparently Steve was on his way to a rendezvous with Lisa, his childhood girlfriend, whom he hasn't seen in 40 years but has sworn to meet at the titular school, where they first met as kids, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the new millennium. As Frank frantically tries to keep Steve alive, the story jumps to Steve's childhood, where he first went to the school and actually met Lisa.
Meanwhile, Steve is desperate for Frank to keep his appointment for him and asks him to go to the school to meet his girlfriend Lisa in his place, and because Frank is such a nice guy he does just this. He can't find her, but he stays for class anyway and the magic of dance as dispensed by Marienne Hotchkiss (Mary Steenburgen), starts to take effect. With her mother Marylyn long dead, Marienne runs the class with a type of authoritarian glamour.
Frank eventually falls under the spell of dance releasing his deepest hidden feelings and coloring his life magenta. With the help of Meredith (Marisa Tomei) he's able to move on from his dead wife and hopefully find new love. There's no doubt that Marylyn Hotchkiss is entertaining for most of it's length, but it's also strange and off-beat and often verges on archness, as though it's trying too hard to press the point about moving on from one's disappointments.
There's also very little actual instruction at the dance studio, and it's as though Marienne is more concerned with getting her students to connect and learn the delicate art of manners - I guess that's the point. I'm also not sure whether Robert Carlyle was the right choice to play Frank. Carlyle is clearly a talented actor and continues to display both range and presence, but in this case it probably would have been more effective to have an American actor playing the part.
Whatever the case, the supporting players are well cast including Donnie Wahlberg Ernie Hudson, Miguel Sandoval, David Paymer, Sean Astin, Sonia Braga, Adam Arkin, and a short appearance by Camryn Manheim. Naturally, there are some bumps on the road to love and learning to move on, but for the most part the movie is pretty predicable and is laden with a heavy dose of syrup. Most viewers will want to see it through, just to find out what happened to Lisa. Mike Leonard July 06.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
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