Bounce Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)November 17th, 2000
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"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
Everybody is making such a big deal about Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow and their highly publicized “are they or aren’t they” relationship. I couldn't give a rat’s ass what any Hollywood star does with their personal life (unless it actually involves a rat’s ass), but even I have to take my hat off to Affleck and Paltrow for their performances in Bounce, the new three-hankie chick-flick starring the former/current/future real-life couple. I don’t know if their off-screen relationship has anything to do with it, but their chemistry in Bounce is terrific. The Oscar-winning duo seem so comfortable in their roles that it doesn’t appear that either is acting.
Affleck (Reindeer Games) stars as Buddy Amaral, a smooth-talking advertising salesman who appears to be an extension of Affleck’s Jim Young from Boiler Room. As the film opens, he has just landed the Big Account but finds himself stranded at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport due to a snowstorm. He meets a married father of two from Los Angeles named Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn, Kiss the Girls). Buddy has a boarding pass for the next flight to L.A. but gives it to Greg so he can make it home for his son’s Cub Scouts Christmas tree sale the following day.
Greg’s plane ends up crashing, killing all 216 people onboard. His wife, Abby (Paltrow, Duets), assumes Greg is okay, since he wasn’t supposed to be on that particular flight. Eventually she gets confirmation that her husband is dead, leaving her two sons fatherless. Without seeing a dime from a class-action suit against the airline, Abby makes ends meet as a struggling commercial real estate agent.
In the meantime, Buddy goes on a one-year bender. It’s hard to tell if he’s just freaked out from narrowly escaping death or if he’s bothered by indirectly killing a nice guy with two little kids (the character doesn’t even acknowledge the latter scenario). As part of his alcohol rehab, he’s forced to take that dreaded eighth step, where you’re supposed to make amends with all the people you hurt as a drunk. He finds Abby, pretends to be a complete stranger, and hooks her up with a peach of a real estate transaction. Buddy only means his atonement to be financial, but he ends up falling for Abby when she orders a grilled cheese sandwich at a diner after the big closing.
The rest of the film shows the budding relationship between Buddy and Abby, but as a viewer, you know it’s only a matter of time before she finds out about the boarding pass swap that left her a widow. It's obvious that Buddy really wants to be honest with Abby but knows the truth will crush her. The further he gets into the relationship, the worse his secret becomes. He’s the first person who has been nice to her without knowing she’s a widow … except he really does, but has to pretend he doesn’t.
Bounce’s ending is kind of a cop-out, compared to the quality of the rest of the script. I won’t go into why here, as it could ruin the ending, but it seems like it could have been mistakenly inserted from a completely different film. Admittedly, it’s different than what you’d expect from a typical chick-flick, but it still doesn’t work.
As I mentioned earlier, the acting in Bounce is fabulous. The smart script and direction (from The Opposite of Sex’s Don Roos) is also much better than average. Both of Roos’ main characters are more flawed than we’re used to seeing on the screen, and the flaws aren’t your typical Hollywood defects. Roos doesn’t hit you over the head with emotional stuff, either. You don’t see the plane crash, and the scene where Abby learns that her husband was on the flight is surprisingly tasteful, while most other films would have exploited both of these scenarios. Credit Atom Egoyan regular Mychael Danna for keeping his score in check throughout the film.
1:49 - PG-13 for adult language and sexual content
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