Writer and Director: Tom Malloy
If the main characters in a film are called Jack and Jill it could indicate either a marked lack of imagination or an effort to attract potential viewers by suggesting the movie is a cute undemanding romcom. One assumes writer/director/star Tom Malloy was going for the latter with Ask Me To Dance.
During a competitive dance-off the MC teases the competitors declaring she can dance rings around them with the least likely partner in the room-dragging the awkward-looking Jack (writer/ director Malloy) onto the floor. It is a setup of course, although currently employed in IT Jack is a former professional dance teacher and puts on an impressive show. He attracts the attention of Jill (Briana Evigan) who is in the company of a romcom staple – a gay best friend serving to deter unwanted suitors.
In the first of what becomes a pattern, events conspire to prevent Jack and Jill from making a connection at the dance but later they separately encounter a fortune-teller who predicts by midnight on New Year’s Eve they each will find the love of their life. As that is only five days away fate had better get a move on.
The opening dance sequence is in the spirit of Strictly Come Dancing rather than Saturday Night Fever. The competitors, while talented, are good losers. Director Tom Malloy maintains this low-key gracious approach throughout the movie. Jack and Jill stumble through a series of disastrous dates but seem bemused rather than despairing as if storing up the misadventure to turn it into an anecdote later.
Appropriate for the fairy tale names of the characters, Malloy creates a larger-than life almost fantasy atmosphere. Despite being late December, the weather is so temperate it is possible to walk around without coats and to hold celebrations out of doors. The town is so cosmopolitan drive-in movie theatres show German art films rather than cheap and cheerful horror movies.
The artificial atmosphere does not accord with the laid-back naturalistic performances. Rather than mug for the camera Briana Evigan and Tom Malloy opt for puzzled inquisitiveness and weary resignation as yet another date does not work out, or strange event occurs including a cameo by wrestling superstar Kurt Angle.
The writer/ director does, however, have tendency to over-explain. Conversations remind viewers that New Year’s Eve is approaching. At the climax the contrivances which kept Jack and Jill from meeting are carefully explained to tie up loose ends. Strangely, however, there is scant background information on the characters – no indication of why Jack and Jill remain single, or why the former chose to quit his job as dance teacher.
Molloy avoids the more juvenile gags that have popped up in past romcoms, no-one gets diarrhoea while wearing a white wedding dress in Ask Me To Dance. The humour comes from the exaggerated eccentricities of the characters- Jack’s brother seeking out the opportunity for three-way sex on every occasion. No-one in the film is beyond redemption; at worst they are comically irritating – a bipolar reality TV star who is working towards starring in a celebrity rehab show.
There is little romantic suspense in Ask Me To Dance. Jack and Jill are clearly perfect for each other so the obstacles which pop up to prevent their meeting are amusing not frustrating- you know they will get together eventually. Their actual encounter, like the movie as a whole, is gentle and unassuming rather than dramatic.
Ask Me To Dance takes a mature approach to romantic comedy and the result is a film which is amusing rather than laugh out loud funny; it is a fairy-tale with a mundane ending.
Ask Me to Dance is screening in cinemas from 7 October.
