In the event you needed more foreshadowing, there’s a subsequent scene in the female changing quarters where dancers gossip about a male member of the troupe who was kicked out for being gay. Tbilisi, where this movie, written and directed by Levan Akin, is set and was shot, looks like a pleasant place to live, but also like a land out of time. The young members of the Georgian dance group all smoke like chimneys, and their world, and the world around them, has seriously retrograde ideas about human relations. This means trouble for Merab, who has more than a socially unacceptable new love on his plate: his family is struggling in poverty.

Gelbakhiani, the lead actor, has a lean physique, striking red hair and certain facial features that suggest he’d actually make a great Alfredo Linguini in a live-action remake of “Ratatouille,” not that such a thing should happen. He and the rest of the cast perform with conviction, and the whole movie is attractively, solidly put together. But its dramatic components, fraught as they are, are tepidly delivered. The movie catches fire only in its final scene, in which Merab expresses his rebellion in the language of dance, not words.

And Then We Danced

Not rated. In Georgian, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes.