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The Rebound2009 | 95 min | R | 2.39:1
It’s been a bizarre career for writer/director Bart Freundlich, who made his debut with the 1997 film fest darling “The Myth of Fingerprints,” only to weave between considered fare (2001’s “World Traveler”), family distractions (2004’s “Catch That Kid”), and misguided nonsense (2005’s “Trust the Man”). “The Rebound” marks a career low point for the battered helmer, bottoming out with this wrongheaded, hyperactive romantic comedy. Although it bears the marks of studio intervention, much of the blame remains firmly with Freundlich, who’s incapable of arranging a single honest moment in this uncomfortable, frightfully strained creation. 
After catching her husband (Sam Robards) cheating with another woman, 40-year-old Sandy (Catherine Zeta-Jones) has picked up her two kids and moved to New York City for a fresh start. Meeting coffee shop clerk Aram (Justin Bartha), Sandy finds a friendly soul who’s good with children. Hiring the 25-year-old as a nanny, Sandy looks to reclaim her life, embarking a series of bad dates and exciting vocational opportunities. With Aram her only source of stability, Sandy takes a chance on love, trying to downplay the age difference as the two move gradually into a relationship. While happy, time together reveals a divide between the two that’s tested by a pregnancy scare, leaving the couple to wonder if they’re mature enough to truly sustain a relationship everyone else seems to disapprove of. Possibly drawing from his own longstanding relationship with actress Julianne Moore (and their 10-year age difference), Freundlich has every opportunity to turn “The Rebound” into a sincere statement of attraction and devotion, creating two figures of logical need in Sandy and Aram. Instead of capturing life and its unexpected turns, the filmmaker creates a rancid sitcom with his screenplay, using caricatures to sell the goods, somehow under the impression that the only way this premise would work is to make it cringingly broad and contrived, scooping out any opportunity for emotional realism. “The Rebound” is depressing to watch, pushing along a mechanical plot that offers little surprise or stabilized idiosyncrasy. Sandy and Aram don’t fall in love, they connect the dots, following Freundlich’s master plan obediently, failing to secure a plausible reason for commitment. 
The writing is consistently awkward, but a few excursions into bodily fluid humor make it downright loathsome. Afraid to take the premise seriously, Freundlich orders up an extended bowel movement gag to display the horrors of Sandy’s dating experience, finding a potential suitor (John Schneider) happily visiting a portable toilet while out on the town, leaving him no option to wash his hands post-poop. I’m sure most of the moviegoing public can predict what happens next. Later in the picture, a spray of vomit reinforces Aram’s babysitting ease -- another gross-out attempt to jolt viewers awake. When disgusting things fail to charge the experience, the filmmaker keeps Zeta-Jones on red alert, encouraging the actress to crudely accentuate every reaction and bellow her lines with a tenuous American accent. It’s a spastic performance meant to approximate bursting levels of stress and emotional constipation, but it mostly registers as an actress trying much too hard to come off accessible, miles away from her typically frosty demeanor. It’s overkill, leaving poor Bartha to stand back and let his co-star explode in a fit of quirks and bug-eyed emphasis. “The Rebound” is a comedy for the first two acts, attempting to build the relationship with all sorts of humor, keeping the plot fluffed and the characters bewildered. Matters grow depressingly real in the climax, presenting a neck-breaking turn of events that find Sandy and Aram dealing with a troubled pregnancy, introducing death to this supposedly blithe affair. I believe it was Aristotle or perhaps Stephanie Tanner who once put it so eloquently, “How rude.” 
Without warning, “The Rebound” moves from a tale of May-December romance (more May-August, though the supporting characters treat Aram as an alien just because the guy is 25 years old) to a document of maturity, making absurd leaps in characterization in the final 15 minutes, raising the possibility that Freundlich wasn’t intensely involved in the editing of the film. Nevertheless, producer interference is only one excuse in a feature of numerous sins. “The Rebound” remains a stunningly unlikable effort, tonally unsteady and often infantile. It’s difficult to comprehend what Freundlich wanted to say with this effort, but it’s safe to report that very little sanity made it into the final product. Starring: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Bartha, Andrew Cherry, John Schneider Director: Bart Freundlich » See full cast & crew |
 
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