OxfordPress.com

Grade: B

Verdict: A fine romance about second chances.

Details: Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck. Directed by Don Roos. Rated PG-13 for sexual situations and profanity. One hour, 45 minutes.

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Review: Bouncing back is both the theme and the story line of “Bounce,” a fine romantic drama starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck.

Affleck plays Buddy Amaral, a fast-talking, fast-lane ad exec whose newest acount is Infinity Airlines. Held up in Chicago by bad weather, he repairs to the nearest airport bar, where he makes friends with Mimi (Natasha Henstridge), a gorgeous businesswoman whose flight doesn't leave until the next day, and Greg (Tony Goldwyn), a nice-guy family man who's trying his best to get home to L.A. After a few drinks, Buddy impulsively opts for an, um, layover with Mimi and offers Greg his ticket.

A win-win situation, you might think. Except, the plane crashes. In a sense, Buddy crashes as well. He goes into a survivor-guilt tailspin of alcoholism and self-destruction. At an awards ceremony honoring the ad agency for its schmaltzy “Flight 82: We Remember” series (the spots are dead-on clones of those cloying Olympics mini-portraits), Buddy stumbles drunkenly to the podium and lauds the campaign for so effectively getting across the message, “Hey, we crashed, but we're hurting and humble and we're ready to sell some tickets.”

That little speech earns him a ticket to rehab.

Several months later, a clean and sober Buddy decides to seek out Greg's widow, Abby. Who happens to be played by Paltrow.

And that's where this movie's story really begins.

Writer-director Don Roos, best-known for his acerbic independent comedy, “The Opposite of Sex,” would initially seem an odd match for this story. But Roos has a number of writer-only credits, ranging from respectable projects like “Love Field” and “Boys on the Side” to the abyssmal remake of “Diabolique.” The point is, Roos is no stranger to high-profile, star-powered material.

Interestingly, as a director, he brings a keen eye for character and nuance to his writer-side's lapses. Parts of “Bounce” are distressingly contrived, but Roos plays against them by keeping things loose and easy.

For instance, he takes time establishing who Buddy and Abby are; they don't even meet until half an hour into the movie. And he's more interested in showing us why both these people think they're damaged goods than he is in letting the movie coast along on movie-star glitter and the leads' very public on-again/off-again romance.

At times, Paltrow, who hides behind dishwater brunet hair and perpetual red-eye, seems to be channeling Lisa Kudrow by way of the young Diane Keaton. But watch how carefully she builds Abby. She shows us a woman blindsided by tragedy. Someone who feels obliged to tell people she's divorced, not widowed, because she's mistrustful of how they'll treat her if they know the truth. At one point, having finally fessed up to Affleck, she pleads, “Don't be nice to me. Everybody is nice to widows.” For his part, Buddy has to cope with the consequences of an impulsive act as well as the fact that he hasn't been completely honest with Abby as to how he “happened” to run into her. Affleck shows us a self-absorbed person learning what it means to put others first. He also blows his leading-man cool by crying. Twice.

Good supporting work is provided by Joe Morton as Buddy's boss and by Johnny Galecki as Buddy's sharp-tongued assistant, who also functions as a kind of guardian angel. Jennifer Grey scores points in the small part of a gate attendant infatuated with Buddy, as do both Goldwyn and Henstridge (whose role, it must be said, is almost entirely a plot function). At the core of “Bounce” is a kind of old-fashioned movie illusion. Namely, we're asked to buy the notion that people who look like Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck could ever be part of the walking wounded. It's to the film's credit that not only do we buy it, but we find ourselves rooting for them.

Asked by Abby what he wants, Buddy replies, “Somebody to say goodnight to. A last call of the day.”

Now that's romantic.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service