Review: The rebound

Director: Bart Freundlich

Release Date: 17 September 2009

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Casting: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Bartha

What it’s all about:

Sandy, freshly divorced leaves the suburbs and moves to the city. She gets an apartment that's above a coffee house where she befriends one of the workers, Aram, a guy whose wife only married him so she could get a green card. Soon after moving into the apartment, Sandy hires Aram to be her nanny while she goes to work. It isn't long when Aram and Sandy find they get along wonderfully and start to date. But the question is: is their relationship real or is it, in fact, just a rebound for both of them?

Why yes?

Zeta-Jones still has it definitely. She brings it all the way, you could believe that she is the part she is playing. The movie had some funny moments that put a smile on your face, the kids and the male nanny are a funny combination with a lot of potential that Freundlich definitely exploited in a good way. The drama is easy to spot, all the criteria are found to make this movie part of the drama-family which on itself wouldn’t be enough, but thanks to the few funny scenes, this movie is surely watchable.

Why not?

The movie brings you a usual love story, he meets her, they get along just fine, a certain event occurs, they can’t be together anymore, they miss each other, they get together again. So I have enough of this text book drama story. But if you still like it , it will deliver exactly what you expect. Zeta-Jones brings it big time, Bartha on the other hand delivers as I see it a semi- bad performance. I’ll explain, the scenes where he is supposed to be the nanny, he acts perfect, in contrast to the romantic scenes where he performs quite badly. For example take the brake up scene where you really need the skills that Zeta- Jones has, where you need to show passion, he tried but wasn’t convincing enough to tell you the truth.

Well...

All in all the movie is quite good, the expected ending the lame story, the usual drama makes this good to watch at home. Definitely not worth buying, maybe the other “illegal” way. Chicks: Gives you the happy ending you want for a chick movie, Guys: it is a chick movie which you can survive when you take out your girlfriend.

Grade: (5 on 10)

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