Verdict
Summary
From director James Ivory and his producing partner Ismael Merchant, Roseland is very much a bittersweet set of stories set in and around a relic of a place where everyone there is also a fading relic. For today’s audiences, I believe the film might be too archaic and antique to suit their cravings, but for a mature, patient audience, there are still rewards to be found here.
Plot:
An anthology film centered around a dance studio in New York.
Review:
The Roseland ballroom is a still-classy holdover from World War II, clinging on in the middle of New York City while the metropolis changes around it. The ballroom hosts nightly dances where anyone can come to grab a partner and dance to live music, but its patrons are aging out, some a little more gracefully than others. One recently widowed woman, a grand old dame named May (Teresa Wright from The Best Years of Our Lives) is a wallflower, looking to rekindle that feeling she used to have with her husband, and when an older gentleman named Stan (Lou Jacobi) asks her to dance, she’s delighted, but she spooks him by gazing at their reflection in the mirror and insisting that she sees her younger self and her husband in their glory years. Stan tries playing along, but the more she insists that she’s dancing with her husband, the less he wants to humor her. Meanwhile, a regular patron of the Roseland is handsome and suave gigolo Russel (Christopher Walken) who charms the old ladies into giving him gifts and attention, but when he lays eyes on a younger attractive woman (played by Geraldine Chaplin), he gets sidetracked from his usual occupation and tries wooing her. His attempts almost win her over, but it becomes clear over the next few nights that he’ll never be a man of commitment because he’s just too accustomed to being won over by the attentions of the other ladies, who compete to make him theirs … at least on a nightly basis. Finally, the Roseland is having a friendly competition for dancers coming up, and a sickly older woman from Vienna named Rosa (Lilia Skala) sees the competition as her last chance to shine, and she chooses a partner even less healthy than she is, and as they practice it becomes clear that neither one of them is fit to compete, much less be out on the dance floor, dancing like there’s no tomorrow. When their turn to twirl comes, it will indeed be their last dance.
From director James Ivory and his producing partner Ismael Merchant, Roseland is very much a bittersweet set of stories set in and around a relic of a place where everyone there is also a fading relic. For today’s audiences, I believe the film might be too archaic and antique to suit their cravings, but for a mature, patient audience, there are still rewards to be found here. It’s not exactly a fun time with its decidedly downbeat and melancholic tone, but I found it palatable despite the fact.
Cohen Film Group and Kino Lober brings Roseland to Blu-ray, and it looked quite nice in high definition. Special features include a discussion with James Ivory about the making of the film, as well as a trailer.
