A Cool, Dry Place is a 1999 movie adapted by Matthew McDuffie from the novel Dance Real Slow by Michael Grant Jaffe. It was directed by John N. Smith

John N. Smith

John N. Smith is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He began his career making documentary and short films before moving on to feature films and then finally working primarily in television. His work has been nominated in the Academy Awards, Genie Awards, and Gemini Awards, but has only...

. The movie stars Vince Vaughn

Vince Vaughn

Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...

, Monica Potter

Monica Potter

Monica Potter is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Potter, one of four daughters, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Irish American Roman Catholic family. Her father, Paul Brokaw, was the inventor of the first flame-resistant car wax, and her mother, Nancy, was a secretary....

, Joey Lauren Adams

Joey Lauren Adams

Joey Lauren Adams is an American actress who has appeared in more than thirty films. She is known for her distinctive, raspy voice and for her roles in View Askewniverse films, particularly Mallrats and Chasing Amy, with the latter giving her a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination.-Career:She...

 and Bobby Moat.

Synopsis

A single father balances his work as an attorney with the care of his five year old son and his work as a high school basketball coach in rural Kansas, where he moved after his wife abandoned him in Chicago. Just as he starts to develop a new relationship with a veterinarian's assistant, his ex-wife suddenly reappears and wants to re-assert herself in her husband and son's life. On top of the romantic conflict, he is also suddenly presented with the opportunity of a lifetime to join a major firm in Dallas.

Cast

• Devon Sawa
  Devon Sawa
  Devon Edward Sawa is a Canadian actor. Although he appears in independent films, he is best known for portraying the part of Alex Browning in the 1999 movie Final Destination...
  
   - Noah Ward
• Joey Lauren Adams
  Joey Lauren Adams
  Joey Lauren Adams is an American actress who has appeared in more than thirty films. She is known for her distinctive, raspy voice and for her roles in View Askewniverse films, particularly Mallrats and Chasing Amy, with the latter giving her a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination.-Career:She...
  
   - Beth Ward
• Monica Potter
  Monica Potter
  Monica Potter is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Potter, one of four daughters, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Irish American Roman Catholic family. Her father, Paul Brokaw, was the inventor of the first flame-resistant car wax, and her mother, Nancy, was a secretary....
  
   - Kate Durrell
• Vince Vaughn
  Vince Vaughn
  Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...
  
   - Russell Durrell
• Dean McDermott
  Dean McDermott
  Dean McDermott is a Canadian-American actor best known in the United States for having married Victoria Davey "Tori" Spelling, with whom he appeared in the observational documentary shows Tori & Dean: Inn Love and Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, and for having acted out the role of Constable...
  
   - Sheriff Pritchard
• Siobhan Fallon - Charlotte
• Jenny Robertson
  Jenny Robertson
  Jenny Robertson is an American actress who has appeared in Heart of Dixie, Bull Durham, Rude Awakening, A Little Piece of Heaven, Reno 911! and Notorious . She is married to actor Thomas Lennon. She is sometimes credited as Jenny Lennon.-External links:...
  
   - Joyce Ives
• Todd Louiso
  Todd Louiso
  Todd Louiso is an American film actor and film director best known for his role as timid record store clerk Dick in High Fidelity, opposite Jack Black and John Cusack. Other supporting roles include School For Scoundrels. Louiso directed his first film in 2002, the acclaimed Love Liza with Philip...
  
   - Bob Harper
• Skipp Sudduth
  Skipp Sudduth
  Robert Lee Sudduth IV , generally known by his stage name Skipp Sudduth, is an American theater, film, and TV actor. Sudduth is perhaps best known for his role in the movie Ronin and his lead in the TV drama Third Watch....
  
   - Jack Newbauer
• Jennifer Irwin
  Jennifer Irwin
  Jennifer Irwin is a Canadian actress best known for her roles as Linda on Still Standing and as Maria Ganitisis in the Molly Shannon comedy Superstar....
  
   - Connie Harper
• Aleksa Palladino
  Aleksa Palladino
  Aleksa Palladino is an Italian American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her lead roles in Manny & Lo, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Find Me Guilty, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.-Life and career:Palladino was born in New York City, where she grew up...
  
   - Bonnie
• Melanie Nicholls-King - Dallas Desk Clerk
• Beth Littleford
  Beth Littleford
  Elizabeth Anna Halcyon "Beth" Littleford is an American actress, comedienne, and television personality. She is perhaps best known for being one of the original correspondents on the popular Comedy Central satirical news series The Daily Show from 1996 to 2000; she is also known as Tripp's mother...
  
   - Suzanne
• Nicholas Campbell
  Nicholas Campbell
  Nicholas Campbell , sometimes credited as Nick Campbell, is a Canadian actor and filmmaker, who has won three Gemini Awards for acting. The movies Naked Lunch, Prozac Nation and the TV series Da Vinci's Inquest are some examples of his acting work.-Early life:Campbell was born in Toronto, Ontario,...
  
   - Frankie Gooland
• Chris Bauer
  Chris Bauer
  Mark Christopher "Chris" Bauer is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Bauer was born in Los Angeles, California and attended high school at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California. He played on Miramonte Championship football team his senior year, 1984...
  
   - Larry Ives
• Janet Kidder
  Janet Kidder
  Janet Kidder is a Canadian actress.Janet Kidder is the niece of actress Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the Superman movies. They both appeared in Walk on By, an episode of La Femme Nikita, as the younger and older Roberta, Nikita's mother. Janet's participation was in brief flashback...
  
   - Crystal

Background

A large part of the film was not shot in Kansas, but rather in a little town in Ontario called Lindsay (now part of the city of Kawartha Lakes) as well as the town of Brooklin.

A rejected soundtrack was composed by Mike Mills

Mike Mills

Michael Edward "Mike" Mills is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock group R.E.M.. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire includes also keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments...

 of R.E.M.

R.E.M.

R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...