The Rebound (2009)

In New York City, a single mom captivates her new neighbor, a much younger man.

Director:

Bart Freundlich

Writer:

Bart Freundlich

Stars:

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Bartha, Andrew Cherry

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Catherine Zeta-Jones	...	Sandy
Justin Bartha	...	Aram Finklestein
Andrew Cherry	...	Frank Jr. - Age 7
Kelly Gould	...	Sadie - Age 9
Lynn Whitfield	...	Laura Reilly
Kate Jennings Grant	...	Daphne
Rob Kerkovich	...	Mitch
Sam Robards	...	Frank
John Schneider	...	Trevor
Joanna Gleason	...	Roberta Finklestein
Art Garfunkel	...	Harry Finklestein
Stephanie Szostak	...	Alice Marnier
Marcel Simoneau	...	Henri
Eliza Callahan	...	Sadie - Age 13 (as Eliza Barry Calahan)
Rehan Yadav	...	Zeke Finklestein - Age 5

Storyline

Sandy, upon discovering her husband's infidelity while watching her son's birthday video, leaves the suburbs and moves into 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. Aram's family thinks he's wasting his life and education by working in the coffee house. Soon after moving into the apartment, Sandy hires Aram to be her nanny while she takes on work for the first time since her children were born. 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?

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Plot Keywords:

older woman younger man relationship | new york city | seeing a parent have sex | bad date | self defense class | 

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Taglines:

She's still got it. He's just getting it.

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [France] Official site [Japan] (Japanese)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 September 2009 (Mexico)

Also Known As:

Untitled Bart Freundlich Project

Filming Locations:

Istanbul, Turkey

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$21,790,414, 13 February 2011

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Film Department,A&F Productions,Dillywood

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min 97 min (European Film Market)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS (as Datasat Digital Sound)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film's subject of an older woman with a younger man is close to writer-director Bart Freundlich's heart - his wife Julianne Moore is 10 years older than he is. Conversely, lead actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is also 25 years younger than her husband, Michael Douglas.

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Goofs

When Sandy and Aram leave the clinic after finding out she is suffering from and ectopic pregnancy, it is snowing but some of the people crossing the street behind them are wearing shorts.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Sandy: [driving kids to school] Same thing, every fucking morning.
Sadie - age 9: I heard that.
Sandy: No, you didn't.
Sadie - age 9: Yes, I did.
Frank Jr. - age 7: I did, too.

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Connections

Referenced in Nostalgia Critic: The Haunting (2011)

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Soundtracks

Monk's Feathers
Written by Brad Hatfield
Performed by Brad Hatfield

User Reviews

Moderately entertaining, but bland and mediocre

The movies which are most difficult for me to write a review about are not those which provoke nausea because of their horrible technical and creative quality; neither are those which renew my faith in cinema with an unusual display of greatness.The most difficult movies to write a review about are the simply mediocre ones, which provide the minimum quantity of entertainment in order not to get us bored, but without any ambition of transcending that basic function and say something more, or make us feel something.The Rebound is one of those movies.

Bart Freundlich's direction is too bland and impersonal, because he does not bring too much passion to his work.On the positive side from The Rebound, we have the naturalness in the characters and their attitudes.I was very grateful not to see "meet cute" (the casual and funny first encounter between the main characters), or ridiculous public humiliations to show the love between the couple, or artificial obstacles in the romance to create suspense about the invariable reconciliation.Well, there are obstacles, but they feel more honest and realistic for being based on the age difference between the two main characters.And even though Catherine Zeta-Jones and Justin Bartha are not a precisely blistering couple, their affinity and attraction feel credible.

It is definitely a paradox, but I think those positive elements also are fails from the movie.I did not feel too much interest in the future from the couple, or in their evolution.Zeta-Jones and Bartha make a decent work, but the screenplay does not give them too much to do.Talking about Zeta-Jones, the only specific moment which endures in my memory is a scene in which her character goes to a class of self-defense, and she fights against a "criminal" disguised as a Sumo wrestler.That scene was obviously designed for provoking laughs, but there is a moment in which we see intense emotion and frustration because of her recent divorce in the main character's eyes.It was on that moment when I remembered that Zeta-Jones can be a very competent actress when she works with the right material, so it was a bit of a pity to see her relatively wasted during the rest of the film, because her talent goes further.

In summary, I think I can give a slight recommendation to The Rebound, mainly because it is never boring.But at the same time it is moderately entertaining, it is also bland and absolutely forgettable.