Love affair that’s on the rebound
THE Rebound adds to the growing number of films about American-Jewish men dating non-Jewish women, but with an inter-generational twist.
FILM REVIEW: THE REBOUND
Reviewed by Don Perlgut
THE Rebound adds to the growing number of films about American-Jewish men dating non-Jewish women, but with an inter-generational twist.
The film’s young Jewish hero, Aram Finklestein (played by Jewish actor Justin Bartha from The Hangover) is an uncommitted 25-year-old man who meets and falls in love with the 40-year-old Sandy (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a separated suburban mother with two exceedingly cute and adorable kids.
Both Aram and Sandy are on “the rebound” — Aram from his disastrous early marriage to a stunning French woman who used him to get her Green Card (US residency), and Sandy from her philandering husband (played by Jewish actor Sam Robards, the son of Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards).
When Sandy rents the flat above the Manhattan coffee shop where Aram works, their friendship blossoms. Soon he is baby-sitting, then becomes a full-time nanny and before long moves into a full-time relationship, despite the disapproval of his “very Jewish” Upper West Side parents, capably played by Jewish actor/entertainers Joanna Gleason and singer Art Garfunkel.
Gleason has played Jewish roles in a number of Woody Allen films and had a major recurring part in the TV series The West Wing.
For Garfunkel, best known as part of the Simon and Garfunkel singing duo, he is appearing in his biggest film role since Carnal Knowledge in 1971.
Jewish writer/director Bart Freundlich is a direct filmic descendant of Woody Allen, whose New York Jewish romantic comedies covered so much territory that younger Jewish filmmakers have a hard time making up new stories.
Freundlich places his film firmly in the secular, intellectual New York Jewish world where he lives with his (non-Jewish) actress wife Julianne Moore, who is 10 years older than him.
In many ways, The Rebound is a follow-up to Freundlich’s pleasant 2006 romantic comedy Trust the Man (which starred Moore and Bartha).
Freundlich does a capable job and has some truly great scenes: Sandy’s extraordinary date with a chiropractor is certainly one of the funniest movie scenes this year.
Unfortunately The Rebound’s fine cast does not do enough to make this film emotionally satisfying. Zeta-Jones is thoroughly watchable onscreen, while Bartha is an actor on the road to stardom: watch for his next roles in Hangover Two and Holy Rollers about Israeli drug syndicates.
Despite its flaws, I found the film’s final 15 minutes (which I won’t reveal) to be highly rewarding. If the rest of the film had reached that level of insight and story-telling, The Rebound might have become a mini-classic.
The Rebound is now screening in cinemas.
comments