Movie Review: The Rebound (2009)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Bart Freundlich  

Starring: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Bartha  
Running Time: 95 minutes  

Synopsis: 40-year-old suburbanite housewife Sandy (Catherine Zeta-Jones) separates from her cheating husband and moves to New York City with her two pre-teen kids. She finds a sportscasting job and leans on 25-year-old barista Aram (Justin Bartha) for babysitting. He is a college graduate but aimlessly drifting through life and still living with his parents. Gradually a romance evolves between Sandy and Aram, but the age difference will get into the way.

What Works Well: Catherine Zeta-Jones is radiant as a mom getting to grips with a new stage of life, and director Bart Freundlich avoids romanticizing Manhattan. The final act seeks originality within genre confines. 

What Does Not Work As Well: This clunky rom-com suffers from poor pacing, a paucity of ideas, unfunny secondary characters (Aram's parents are obnoxious), and a lack of both subtlety and wit. A couple of scenes (a woman's self-defense class, Sandy's disastrous date with a chiropractor) are prolonged well after the humour runs out. Vulgarity is deployed in a misguided search for laughs, with adults who should know better and kids spouting foul language. Sandy and Aram generate limited romantic chemistry, and it's never clear what a supposedly smart woman sees in his failure-to-launch character other than convenient babysitting services. 

Key Quote:

Sandy (to Aram): Someone like you shouldn't be with someone like me - an old girlfriend with two kids.

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