Sweet Hearts Dance

I read some of the other reviews here, and quite a few of these people don't understand the reason for this movie at all.

It is not meant to titillate, amuse, or thrill you. It is a spot on slice of life movie about a couple who love each other, but don't understand why their lives are driving straight into the doldrums. They don't know how to communicate about it, and all they really need to succeed in their relationship is to do just that.

There is a strong object lesson here that if watched and grasped, could save most marriages that fail for similar reasons.

This is not to say that the movie is without charm to entertain, it has plenty. But I didn't give this movie a 9 for its straight entertainment value, I gave it a 9 for its relationship educational value.

Don Johnson, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Daniels, Elizabeth Perkins, Kate Reid, and Justin Henry star in this movie of how a couple's marriage becomes a lot easier when the truth is revealed. Don Johnson stars as Wiley Boon, a hard-working husband and father who has lived in the same Vermont town all his life. Now things are getting bitter between him and his wife Sandra (Susan Sarandon) just as Wiley's best friend Sam (Jeff Daniels) is falling in love with a local school teacher (Elizabeth Perkins). This is a great movie that every married couple should watch.

Episodes in the lives of two East Coast couples who are friends: Jeff Daniels and Elizabeth Perkins are the sweethearts (sweet hearts?) just getting their romance started, while Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon are married-and-bickering with kids. Tolerable comedy-drama from screenwriter Ernest Thompson of "On Golden Pond" fame isn't as maudlin (or, at least to my taste, as fraudulent) as that other film, though neither is it particularly witty or otherwise distinguished. Someone (either director Robert Greenwald, or Thompson, or perhaps the editor) chose to make each incident into its own chapter, like pages from a marital scrapbook or a photogenic kisses-and-hisses calendar. The picture comes off slight as a result, lacking in both romance and frivolity. Solid acting saves much of it, particularly by Don Johnson, whose bursts of temperament are convincing. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto gives the movie a warm 'neighborly' feel that belies some of the emotions being played out. ** from ****

This is quite a surprise -- a real charmer of a movie. Who knew that Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon could co-exist in the same movie -- and play so well? And with Elizabeth Perkins and Jeff Daniels, the charm and the good looks just ooze off the screen.

Sweet Hearts Dance has a good cast of actors. Don Johnson was in a very popular period, Susan Sarandon doesn't need an introduction, and Jeff Daniels came from the success of "Purple rose of Cairo" and "Something wild". There were all the elements to be a good movie: an interesting subject (family divorce), the actors, a good screenwriter Ernest Thompson, who came from the copy of Academy Awarded winner "On the golden pond", but the movie failed the waits. The screenplay is very repetitive: it seems to be taken from a reduction of "Terms of endearment" (even Elizabeth Perkins phisically looks like Debra Winger) and from a series of similar movies. Don Johnson is very good in the part of the rebellious husband with a bad character but we don't understand where his intolerance comes. The movie doesn't explain this and expires in the usual stereotype of the couple in crisis after the first 15 years of marriage. The direction is so absent that often it doesn't understand if the actors improvise in order to give speed to the scenes or it was a decision of the screenwriter to think many slow and predictable scenes. However the story presents even very funny moments that are the only reason in order to see this movie.