While at the airport bar waiting for their planes, ad exec Ben Affleck gives his ticket to a family man anxious to get home to his wife and kids; after the plane crashes, Affleck checks up on the man's widow, even helps get her work, before falling in love with her--and also before disclosing he has something to tell her, something important...but it can wait until tomorrow. As written and directed by Don Roos, "Bounce" follows such a formulaic pattern that everything in it is fraudulent. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the bereaved with a certain amount of sophisticated grace, but her character is always on the verge of making a hasty exit and her dialogue smacks of too-smart little observations thick with script-writer's ink. Affleck is always on the verge of finding a character--and failing (even when he has tears welling up in his eyes, nothing Affleck says or does quite rings true). The picture doesn't exist in any kind of reality--nothing in it appears natural--with decorative city and beach settings that may very well be stock shots. The character conflicts don't balance out for us emotionally, and when Paltrow kicks Affleck out of her house in front of her two kids, she's suddenly so embittered and vindictive that we can't recover from it in time for the finale. There's also the proverbial gal-pal for Paltrow and gay assistant for Affleck who both dish out that kind of 'it-hurts-but-it's-good-for-you' advice prone to romance weepies. It's an assembly-line chick flick for viewers who bounce unceremoniously from one of these movies to the next. ** from ****
Review of Bounce
