THE REBOUND (DVD)
Momentum Pictures

Release date: February 7th 2011
Certificate (UK): 15
Running time: 95 minutes

Director: Bart Freundlich

Cast: Catherine Zeta Jones, Justin Bartha, John Schneider, Art Garfunkel

Most people enjoy a good ‘against all odds’ kind of movie, but I prefer them when there’s a courageous hobbit traipsing across Middle Earth, or about a philanthropic crook who saves the Jews from dying in a death camp. Not about a middle class woman who gets divorced, has to navigate her way through New York and look after her children, which is what The Rebound offers.

After discovering her husband has been cheating on her, Sandy (Catherine Zeta Jones) moves to New York and rather conveniently finds herself an apartment, a job at a major TV station and schools for the children, all in the space of two days.

As Sandy and her children face the usual problems that the heroine must tackle before her happy ever after, Aram (Justin Bartha) the nanny arrives to help out; an aimless graduate in his mid-twenties who becomes very attached to Sandy and her children. Aram entertains the children in a rather endearing, watchable way, whilst his friend who works in a café with him is a sex obsessed amateur actor who makes for one or two funny lines.

I realise this The Rebound makes no claims to be the next Dr Zhivago (1965), but it really is just another Hollywood-factory made film with a few good actors, and a thoughtful but not brilliant script. Though the ending provides little more than a luke-warm feeling in the bottom of my stomach, it made me feel I didn’t completely waste the last hour and a half of my life.

All in all, definitely not an unsurpassed feast of scenes that will be remembered over centuries, but it does serve as viable afternoon viewing when you just want to be mildly entertained.