Sandy (Catherine Zeta-Jones), on looking out a video of the kids' birthday party, spots her husband (not realising he was on camera) getting, er, personal services in the kitchen from a neighbour. So, at the age of 40, she ends up in New York with the kids, starting a new life. She is helped in this by Aram (Justin Bartha), a 25 year old who babysits and nannies the kids, who take to him very enthusiastically. Over a period of time she warms to him too and, inevitably (especially given that much of this sits firmly in romcom territory), a relationship starts. However, the age difference is never very far from the surface - will this drive them apart, or will they be able to negotiate their way through it? The weakest part of this movie (finally reaching the UK nearly a year after its release in other markets) is the rather glib way everything falls into Sandy's lap - job, apartment, babysitter - and scant attention is paid to the heartache of divorce, apart from two scenes which utilise the same dialogue in an engaging way. But this glibness means that the mechanics of real-life can be glossed over in order to get to the meat of the matter, which is the relationship between Sandy and Aram.
And they are both pleasingly realised characters, delivered well by the two principal performers (although Zeta-Jones, despite playing her actual age, never really convinces as a woman concerned about the advent of fading looks etc.). They are helped immensely by Kelly Gould and Andrew Cherry as her children, and Joanna Gleason and Art Garfunkel as his parents, not to mention John Schneider in a very funny (if somewhat improbable) sequence as a date from hell.
The Rebound is amiable, without often being laugh-out-loud funny throughout much of its length although at about the 75% mark there are a couple of plot developments which, though logical, are unexpected, and the film enters drama mode and drops the romcom element almost completely. This part of the film was a complete surprise - the trailer gives a very accurate picture of the early part, and no clue at all about the final quarter - and, to me, was very welcome. It gives a satisfactory resolution to a story which was never going to be comfortably topped off with a conventional happy ending.
And they are both pleasingly realised characters, delivered well by the two principal performers (although Zeta-Jones, despite playing her actual age, never really convinces as a woman concerned about the advent of fading looks etc.). They are helped immensely by Kelly Gould and Andrew Cherry as her children, and Joanna Gleason and Art Garfunkel as his parents, not to mention John Schneider in a very funny (if somewhat improbable) sequence as a date from hell.
The Rebound is amiable, without often being laugh-out-loud funny throughout much of its length although at about the 75% mark there are a couple of plot developments which, though logical, are unexpected, and the film enters drama mode and drops the romcom element almost completely. This part of the film was a complete surprise - the trailer gives a very accurate picture of the early part, and no clue at all about the final quarter - and, to me, was very welcome. It gives a satisfactory resolution to a story which was never going to be comfortably topped off with a conventional happy ending.