Bounce

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Buy This Item Bounce by Miramax  Available from Amazon  $10.00  on 11-16-2008     <I>Bounce</I> has all the deft charm and breezy good looks you'd expect from a romance starring Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, but under the surface beats the poisoned heart of an independent film just going through the motions. Affleck plays Buddy Amaral, a successful ad exec with an empty life. In a Chicago airport, he meets Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn), a failed playwright going home to his family and a corrupt job as a TV writer. Buddy, angling for a one-night stand with a fellow passenger, gives Greg his ticket, but feels bad when he discovers the plane crashed and the guy died. He feels so bad, in fact, that when he gets out of rehab a year or so later, he decides to give the guy's widow, real estate agent Abby (Paltrow), commission on the sale of a building for his business, a sale she's not qualified to make. They start dating. She quickly forgets her initial impression of him as a creepy stalker. Near the end of the movie, she finds out her first impression was correct and she dumps him. It's the right decision but one that the movie won't allow her to make. Instead her best friend and her kids convince her to stay with the guy. Eeeesh. Affleck is good at playing privileged and shallow, Paltrow does what she can with the prepackaged grief of a widow, Joe Morton has very little to do as Buddy's business partner (but he does it well), and Johnny Galecki shines in a very small part as Buddy's assistant. Good performances in a rather creepy film by the guy who made <I>The Opposite of Sex</I>. <I>--Andy Spletzer</I> Reader Reviews This film was a surprise to me. As the blurb on the DVD case said, this was a romantic movie with great chemistry between the two co-stars, I expected to see a cute movie about two beautiful people falling in love. but I was pleasantly suprised by the depth of the movie. The basic plotline is this: Ben Affleck plays a vibrant, young man with a promising career named Buddy who gives up his plane ticket to a man he meets at the airport for a night with a beautiful blond. As fate would have it, the plane has a deadly crash killing all the passengers on board including Buddy's acquaintance. To make up for the guilt, Buddy seeks out the widow of this acquaintance, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Although, Buddy's intentions were merely to help the family and disappear, in the midst of his guilt, he sees past the grief and falls in love with this beautiful woman. I believe the script, the directing, and the acting were all very successful in this film. Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck were very believable and the gradual growth in their relationship was very real. Gwyneth's performance was quite amazing. Peronally this is one of my favorite performances by her. She allows Abby to be vulnerable and emotional yet her strength and virtues are consistent throughout the movie. The credit goes to both Gwyneth and the write/director, Don Roos for this. The director seemed to have paid much attention to the details, especially with the two characters in their behavior. Five stars!

Bounce Available from Amazon Price: $10.00 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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