So you're an accountant who's bored with life, in need of some serious change and married to Susan Sarandon to boot.

What do you do? You take dancing lessons, of course!

Especially when you see puppy-eyed J-Lo staring down from a studio window all mopey-like!

That's the scenario that John Clark (played by Richard "You hope you look this good at 55" Gere) faces at the beginning of Shall We Dance?

Based on a Japanese flick of the same name, Shall We Dance? is a supposedly light-hearted tale about following what you love, no matter what obstacles you face, and breaking free of social norms and restrictions to attain it.

But it's not. More on that later.

Essentially, I was hoping for another Strictly Ballroom. What I got was a middle-aged Dirty Dancing with a bit of Havana Nights (thanks to a dash of Latina influence from good ole Jenny from the block).

First off, there were a number of cinematic clichés that got in the way of enjoying this movie. An overly sweeping and sentimental score that came in at the drop of a hat ruined a number of scenes that were holding their own fine.

Pointless flashbacks that lasted literally seconds took me out of the moment when a steady hold on an actor's face would've held ten times as much emotion. One of the film's surprisingly entertaining elements was a sporadic narration by Gere's character as he related life to his job as an accountant, but there was no conclusion or final message. It was a story within a story that had no climax.

And then there's the actual story's ending. I don't mean to sound anti-happy, but this film simply tries way too hard to be joyous and jubilant. There are some very good plot elements here that could've turned up the dramatic drive a bit but were glossed over without even trying.

After a somewhat un-cliché climax (despite the formulaic path we took to get there), I thought the film was about to redeem itself by ending on a realistic, bittersweet note. Instead, the film dragged on an extra five minutes so the audience could be rest assured that every single character in the film, no matter how trivial his or her role, lived happily ever after.

The thing is that, thematically, this isn't a happy movie. It's about a man in a mid-life crisis who goes behind his family's back when he sees a hot chick in a window. It's about a suspicious wife who hires a private investigator because she can't confront her husband. And the supporting characters? A closet-case homosexual, a sweaty fat guy who lies about his love life, a lonely alcoholic dance instructor and an overworked single mother. Comedy for the whole family!

Did I laugh a few times? Sure, and I'm not afraid to admit it. This is an example of one of the most frustrating movies for a reviewer to see because it had the potential to be much more than it was.

It's like the friend who tells you what you want to hear about your life, rather than what you should hear.

And sometimes, the sugarcoating just isn't as sweet.