Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
The Rebound
March 16th 2010 02:53
by Matt Shea
Ten years into the new millennium and finding a decent romantic comedy is proving tougher than ever. It’s like wandering through an unmapped minefield, but instead of explosive devices you’re confronted with the rote of this jaundiced genre: flimsy characters (boom!), punkarse kids (boom!), contrived setups (boom! boom!), watered-down jeopardy (kablamo!).
The Rebound is not going to change your perceptions. This is a film with good intentions and (thankfully) a couple of charming leads, but so thin on character and plot you’d be better off studying the discarded husks of your undercooked popcorn.
Catherine Zeta-Jones plays efficient, super-hygienic 40-year-old suburban mother Sandy who one day realises her husband, Frank (Sam Robards), has having an extramarital affair. Moving to Manhattan with her two kids, Frank Jr. (twins Andrew and Jake Cherry) and Sadie (Kelly Gould) in tow, the devastated Sandy finds herself an apartment and a job fact checking for a sports network.
Under her apartment is a coffee shop and there she meets Aram (Justin Bartha), a down in the dumps 25-year-old recently burned by his Green Card-seeking French ex. Both Sandy and Aram are of course ripe for rebound romance, and an innocuous babysitting gig is soon transitioning into something much more serious and (apparently) complicated.
It’s cookie-cutter stuff and hardly classy comedy: the film is stuffed full of ham-fisted scatological humour (supposedly all the more pointed because of Sandy’s hygiene phobia), vomit jokes, and frequently drifts beyond putrid and into the offensive. The children are, of course, demanding brats and prime candidates for being stuffed down Sandy’s garbage chute.
Writer-director-producer Bart Freundlich has struggled to find his tone with The Rebound. He seems stuck between the crappy humour and a more thoughtful exploration of rebound relationships, age differences and the importance of second chances. He can’t bring himself to build jeopardy into the story, a whole raft of hurdles to Sandy and Aram’s relationship being pushed aside as they simply pedal through the motions, the end result being that when these characters reach the emotional climax of the film you simply couldn’t care less.
The performers end up doing all the work here, and it’s puzzling to think how Freundlich landed such a quality cast. Zeta-Jones is an actress you simply don’t see enough of and she makes the most of the often-preposterous scenes handed to her. She’s almost matched by Bartha, the young player using all his easy charm to make Aram a likeable character. There’s some excellent support too, with Art Garfunkel and Joanna Gleason showing up as Aram’s endearingly meddlesome parents.
Ultimately, however, the players are wasted on The Rebound, their quality an insubstantial substitute for a film with actual depth. This is bound to do a bit of easy business with suckers for slack-bladdered rom coms, but unless this is the only film playing at the only cinema in your recently quarantined small town, you’d be best advised to give it a miss.
I say: Another inferior romantic comedy. Rent When Harry Met Sally instead.
See it for: An excellent cast lifts this above the lowest rung, making it bearable to sit through.
*This image is from SBS Films
Ten years into the new millennium and finding a decent romantic comedy is proving tougher than ever. It’s like wandering through an unmapped minefield, but instead of explosive devices you’re confronted with the rote of this jaundiced genre: flimsy characters (boom!), punkarse kids (boom!), contrived setups (boom! boom!), watered-down jeopardy (kablamo!).
The Rebound is not going to change your perceptions. This is a film with good intentions and (thankfully) a couple of charming leads, but so thin on character and plot you’d be better off studying the discarded husks of your undercooked popcorn.
Catherine Zeta-Jones plays efficient, super-hygienic 40-year-old suburban mother Sandy who one day realises her husband, Frank (Sam Robards), has having an extramarital affair. Moving to Manhattan with her two kids, Frank Jr. (twins Andrew and Jake Cherry) and Sadie (Kelly Gould) in tow, the devastated Sandy finds herself an apartment and a job fact checking for a sports network.
Under her apartment is a coffee shop and there she meets Aram (Justin Bartha), a down in the dumps 25-year-old recently burned by his Green Card-seeking French ex. Both Sandy and Aram are of course ripe for rebound romance, and an innocuous babysitting gig is soon transitioning into something much more serious and (apparently) complicated.
It’s cookie-cutter stuff and hardly classy comedy: the film is stuffed full of ham-fisted scatological humour (supposedly all the more pointed because of Sandy’s hygiene phobia), vomit jokes, and frequently drifts beyond putrid and into the offensive. The children are, of course, demanding brats and prime candidates for being stuffed down Sandy’s garbage chute.
Writer-director-producer Bart Freundlich has struggled to find his tone with The Rebound. He seems stuck between the crappy humour and a more thoughtful exploration of rebound relationships, age differences and the importance of second chances. He can’t bring himself to build jeopardy into the story, a whole raft of hurdles to Sandy and Aram’s relationship being pushed aside as they simply pedal through the motions, the end result being that when these characters reach the emotional climax of the film you simply couldn’t care less.
The performers end up doing all the work here, and it’s puzzling to think how Freundlich landed such a quality cast. Zeta-Jones is an actress you simply don’t see enough of and she makes the most of the often-preposterous scenes handed to her. She’s almost matched by Bartha, the young player using all his easy charm to make Aram a likeable character. There’s some excellent support too, with Art Garfunkel and Joanna Gleason showing up as Aram’s endearingly meddlesome parents.
Ultimately, however, the players are wasted on The Rebound, their quality an insubstantial substitute for a film with actual depth. This is bound to do a bit of easy business with suckers for slack-bladdered rom coms, but unless this is the only film playing at the only cinema in your recently quarantined small town, you’d be best advised to give it a miss.
I say: Another inferior romantic comedy. Rent When Harry Met Sally instead.
See it for: An excellent cast lifts this above the lowest rung, making it bearable to sit through.
*This image is from SBS Films
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Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Try 500 Days of Summer.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Mr Nice Guy
Pop Culturist
Pop Rock Factory
Which raises the question - did the movie and televison studios create the whole cougar mythology or vice versa - chicken and egg stuff.
Looks like another coming to video piece of fluff for most of us.
I think you summed the character of the movie up pretty well.
Cheers
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Haha - I know - I was having similar thought recently.
TBH, though, it's one of the things this film avoids... probably because it avoids altogether exploring the potential pitfalls of such a relationship.