I think that Ben Affleck is a great actor. I think he's a great actor, and
he seems like a pretty cool guy. I don't know him or anything, but based
on what I've read in interviews, he seems very cool and down to earth. Also,
I think that Gwyneth Paltrow is a great actress. Even before her performance
in "Shakespeare
in Love," a performance that won her a well-deserved Academy Award,
I was really impressed with her in other movies, especially "Sliding
Doors." Aside from her obvious talent, she also has a certain kind
of class and elegance, the kind that I've only seen in one other actress,
and that actress is Audrey Hepburn. I'm not saying that Gwyneth Paltrow
is like Audrey Hepburn, mind you. I like Gwyneth a lot, but there will NEVER
be another Audrey. Still, Gwyneth does have the extra something that only
Audrey had.
Gwyneth Paltrow is one of my favorite actresses working today, and Ben Affleck is one of my favorite actors working today. Okay, at one time, they were a couple, fine, whatever, but I didn't care about any of that when I went to see "Bounce." I just wanted to see my favorite performers do their thing. Well, they did. And they did it beautifully.
During one of the early scenes in "Bounce," two people are telling Gwyneth Paltrow that there was a mix up with the airline, that her husband may have been on a plane that just crashed. As they're telling her this, her lip starts to quiver. While watching that, I was amazed. I mean, that's real acting, ya know? Gwyneth Paltrow wasn't just pretending to be that character, she WAS that character.
The supporting players were all very good, too. Joe Morton ("Miles Bennett Dyson" in "Terminator 2") was very good, as was Jennifer Grey (that woman looks so completely different with her new nose... compare her now to how she looked in "Dirty Dancing"... it's like two completely different people). Johnny Galecki, his second time with this director, is superb. He had a really good character to work with, though.
"Bounce" was written and directed by Don Roos, a guy who seems to like to write about women, and he does it well. He wrote "Single White Female," "Love Field," and "Boys on the Side." Also, he wrote and directed "The Opposite of Sex," a very clever movie that left me under the assumption that "Bounce" wouldn't be your typical romantic comedy, and it isn't. Sure, it has SOME of the standard stuff, but it doesn't get too bogged down in what's typical for the genre. Also, the dialogue was very good. Still, it's a fairly predictable movie, and for a while, you find yourself sitting there waiting for the inevitable.
"Bounce"
is a movie I enjoyed, mostly because of the acting and the dialogue. It's
not gonna win any awards or anything, but it's a nice, sweet movie that
I liked. Sure, it's not perfect, but I liked it. And Gwyneth's lip quivered.
How many actresses can do the lip quiver thing?
Scale of 1-10: 8