Musical Chairs

Independent filmmaker Susan Seidelman's sentiment is in the right place, even though she never gets into the groove with this shallow, schmaltzy tale about disabled dancers. Energetic Armando (E.J. Bonilla) was born to dance. Despite his meddling mother's (Priscilla Lopez) efforts to have him take over the family restaurant business in the Bronx and marry their Puerto Rican neighbor (Angelic Zambrana), Armando would rather dance to the music. Armando works as a janitor/substitute teacher at the dance studio where his adored WASP-y Mia (Leah Pipes) is an instructor. When a traumatic automobile accident leaves Mia paralyzed from the waist down, Armando stays by her side, not only starting a wheelchair ballroom dancing program at her rehab center but also helping her get ready to compete in New York's first wheelchair ballroom dancing tournament—to be held in only three months. Seidelman does her best with screenwriter Marty Madden's predictably melodramatic plot, but the supporting characters are trite and stereotypical: the obnoxious Iraq War veteran, angry goth girl, and sassy transsexual who becomes involved with one of Armando's older Latino relatives. An optional purchase. (S. Granger)