"shall we dance?" received a 93% rating from rotten tomatoes ("fresh": 28, "rotten": 2). roger ebert gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, stating in the "chicago sun times" that "shall we dance?" is "one of the more completely entertaining movies i've seen in a while—a well-crafted character study that, like a hollywood movie with a skillful script, manipulates us but makes us like it." critic paul tatara noted that "it isn't really fair to suggest that the movie's main subject is dance, though. as much as anything else, it's about the healing powers (and poetry) of simple self-expression."