From all indications, "Bounce" is the sort of middle-of-the-road Hollywood formula picture that normally trickles down to the Virgin Islands, though it at least has the advantage of real actors in Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow and a writer/director, Don Roos, who's displayed a distaste for cliché in his previous work ("The Opposite of Sex").
In this case, the date-movie formula cranks up when Affleck gives his airline ticket to a Los Angeles writer (Tony Goldwyn) he meets at a snowbound airport. The writer is killed off when the plane crashes, allowing Affleck to turn grief-stricken, drink too much, check into rehab and a year later seek out Paltrow as the writer's widow to ease his conscience.
They fall for each other.
Such suspense as the movie holds turns on when and how Affleck will 'fess up and tell Paltrow about his connection to her dead husband. But moviegoers have the rewards of watching two accomplished young actors dig into the material and create fully rounded human beings striving to commit to one another.
"This touching, finely wrought bowl of suds is a seamless piece of work," according to the New York Times.
"As Abby Janello, the widowed mother of two young boys, Ms. Paltrow gives a performance of astounding delicacy and depth… Playing Buddy Amaral, a swaggering, gregarious advertising executive recovering from alcoholism, Mr. Affleck nearly matches Ms. Paltrow in the understated intensity and exquisite detail of his performance."
In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert agrees that there's "good chemistry, good performances, but the movie depends on precise timing in the revelation of the secret, delays it too long, and curiously keeps Paltrow offscreen for the moment of truth. Good, but could have been better." Ebert gives the film three stars.
The New York Times concurs that "Bounce" "may be far from a great film, but its pleasures are consistent enough to remind you of how few movies nowadays come anywhere close to matching it in intelligence and emotional balance."
Now playing at Market Square East Cinemas.