A Movie Six Hours Long

Or so it seemed.

Over the holidays, I saw so many movies that I completely forgot that I saw this and written a review.   It's long gone from theaters.   But here's your warning in case you run into this 20-car pile-up on cable.

"Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" is one of those movies that had a very captivating trailer.  It looked like a charming way to spend a Saturday night.  A bit of Hollywood frivolity with some good acting and you leave with a smile on your face.

None of that last sentence holds up.   The acting is surprisingly bad.  There was a scowl on my face as I tossed my Diet Coke into the trash can on the way out.  And Hollywood frivolity?  Except for the two lead actors and the director, this is a movie that was made completely by a production staff comprised of Hungarians in Budapest.  

What you wind up with some goulash.  Without meat.  Without potatoes.   Or vegetables.

You'd think this would be a pleasant enough diversion.   Gena Rowlands is an old matron living in Florida.  She keeps talking about her husband being out and due home shortly, but even the deaf and blind know that he really is dead.  Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson is a down-on-his-luck dance teacher looking to hold onto at least one client.  They meet and argue and dance and argue and separate and then meet again and argue and dance and argue and separate again and then meet again and argue and dance right up to the moment where you and everybody else in the world knows that Rowlands will come down with a health issue.

You actually can save yourself a lot of time by writing this script yourself and then reading it without seeing this movie.  It's as predictable as NY humidity in July and New England snow in January.

In between it all are long stretches of dialogue between Gena and Cheyenne that is so stilted and awkward that you wonder if the original script was in Hungarian and they translated it over with a dictionary.    Except hold the presses.   A Google search tells me this is a play that originally got produced in NY and LA by a playwright named Richard Alfieri.  That name doesn't sound Hungarian to me?  All this makes the dreadful end result even more confusing.

In a movie chock full of wrong turns, this one outdoes itself at every turn which, of course, we all saw coming two reels earlier.  It turns out the dance teacher is gay.  Surprised?  Rita Moreno is the neighbor downstairs.   She's Jewish!!!  Hello???  Her son is also gay and you know that he will make a connection with the dance teacher two weeks before you even myopically walked into the theater to see this mess.  

You desperately wait for "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" to show you anything clever that you saw in the trailer and it never ever delivers.  Instead, you desperately wait for the movie to end.  And you can go home to cross out the names in your address book of any friend that is even slightly of Hungarian descent.

So, if you've seen the trailer to this disaster...consider this your first and only warning.

LEN'S RATING:  One-half star.

Dinner last night:  Eye round beef used for French dip sandwich.  And salad.