this movie is simply one of the best I’ve ever seen. And then I question that conclusion. ??? Is it? I don’t know. But it captures a lot and says a lot in a way I understand and relate to. I saw it twice while we had it and I would own it and I want to repeatedly see and own very few films. It was made in 2004, starring Patrick Swayze and his real life wife (who also wrote and directed) Lisa Neimi and another man who must be friends with them (George de la Pena). Of course they are all real life dancers. I knew this about Patrick Swayze, and also that he’d had some knee injuries, etc. And so this movie sort of takes those things and of course some fictional things and makes them into the best doggone movie I’ve ever seen? It captures a lot anyway.

Called, One Last Dance.

See it. Really.

Now, in my privileged past, I did dance, seriously. But my experience of dance was not complicated by my having ever had any dreams about it. I was good enough at it, I had fun with it, I hated toe shoes and couldn’t tumble worth a hoot but by gawd I could perform, it was what it was, and when it was over it was done.

But their dancing in the film is, well, excellent, superb, everything. It is very classical with modern thrown in, rather Joffrey maybe? The film is rather like a musical where they start singing but you don’t really notice because you are into the story except they start dancing and it is part of the dialog but without words. Which is a play on words because the dance they are working on is called without words.

And the story just really touches me, especially now. About dreams, delayed and abandoned and haunting, and how they can sometimes be, well, not re-lived, but danced again, in their own way in their own time. I especially love the ending where they show it is so NOT about external validation but about the dance itself. I mean, I think that ending captures at least some of what I mean by a lot of the things I say about that.

And did I mention that Lisa is beautiful but not Hollywood? Wow, so refreshing, that. I love what real people really look like and I hate how Hollywood and ubiquitous braces and tooth veneers make everyone look exactly the same. Same teeth, same nose, same boobs or pecs. Boring. I have always liked people who look like they can do something. No, who look like they DO do something.

There is so much to love in the movie! There is this speech by the yoda-like elder dance master about not working so hard, about finding the heart and that until you do that you can do all the steps and still have nothing, about how you have to DANCE it so that the mirror disappears. There is this wonderful speech by Lisa/Chrissa about how she undertook this project to be like everyone else and she learned how to be but that the Max character had asked her to dance had helped her to remember the truth she knew at 14. That’s my single most favorite moment, the moment that speaks to me most clearly.

And then there is love. Capital LOVE. And even a nod to family actually being the single most important thing.

And you know what? I want no less. I mean, this movie sort of puts into film format, not exactly my desires or expectations but something like those, an openness to the magic that the universe might bring me despite how many times I mess up. An openness to be the real me, who I universally am, despite me getting in my way. Etc.

ok, there ya go.

And now there’s news of Patrick Swayze’s pancreatic cancer. Patrick, thank you for this film. And for the Pecos Bill in Tall Tales, another excellent film. Thank you thank you thank you.