Who doesn’t know the cruel fate of the talk show circuit? You pour years of your life into writing a book; you spend every last dime in an effort to get somebody to bite; you finally get published, and two years later you spend a week brushing up on your work so that you can spend five minutes on “Afternoons with Dory” while the audience angrily wonders why Bradley Cooper got bumped.
No, Bradley Cooper isn’t in this movie.
I suppose I could give The Bounce Back credit for understanding that talk shows are better when there’s fire, and pitting a trained therapist non-believer against a quick-fix self-helf guru might indeed make for good TV, especially if they’re both pretty.
Therapist Kristin (Nadine Velazquez) believes getting over your ex is a process; it should take as long as it takes. Matthew (Shemar Moore) literally wrote the book on getting over your ex quickly. You’ll never believe this, but both have exes at present. I could end this review right now, couldn’t I? I mean if you can’t see the conclusion here you have either never seen a romance before or believe that a romance film is a process, not a quick fix.
Kristen’s nosy girlfriends invite her to a self-help seminar about getting over your ex hosted by Matthew. The “classroom” is entirely female, which is a nice trick as Matthew wrote from a man’s perspective. I’m sorry, but that’s a full star ding right there. What, this guy can’t appeal to any but heterosexual females? Put on the spot, Kristen challenges Matthew’s premise and then walks out. Kristen hasn’t read Matthew’s book. Matthew knows zilch about therapy. When their exchange is caught on camera, the two are suddenly hot enough to tour – and hot for one another as well. Ooooooo.
Months later, of course, Kristen still hasn’t read Matthew’s book and Matthew still knows zilch about therapy. That’s a ding, or if it isn’t, I’ll give one to the film for clearly not knowing its subject well, either. The Bounce Back (which doubles as Matthew’s book title) treats therapy both as something to kind-of respect, and kind-of as a way to generate income. The film doesn’t seem to know that psychiatrists are actual doctors. We have no idea how much training Kristen has for her job, nor what Matthew would be doing were his book a failure.
In a sense, romance films are all about the
process; very few of them aren’t telegraphed, so the rest is details. I come back to my standard genre rule: for a romantic film to be successful, you have to want to fall in love with the players. Matthew I could see – he’s handsome, sharp and just the right combo of confident and modest (which is to say 100% confident); OTOH, he’s a bit glib and his dogmatic conviction that his methodology is a winner … is a loser. I didn’t dislike Kristen, but I didn’t think she was worth five minutes of therapy, much less a dating option.
This film is a dog. It waggled and yipped and piddled on the floor. The empty philosophy and tired romance formula held no magic for any but perhaps the producers. I did, however, enjoy Matthew’s part-time parenting with his teen daughter. Was that enough to save this romance? No way. Cue up the Lady Gaga.
♪Nobody rubs me rawer
Insists I get over my ex
Nobody bugs me quite as much as you
Baby, you’re my next
I wasn’t trollin’
But somehow you irked me
I tried to refute your camp shlock
His book hardly thorough
This self-help guru
Is peddling one massive pretentious crock
And nobody rubs me rawer
Maybe you didn’t get my text
Nobody’s studied his subject less than you
Baby, you’re my next♫
Rated PG-13, 104 Minutes
D: Youssef Delara
W: Victor Teran & Youssef Delara & Staci Robinson
Genre: When Harry Met Sally and went on talk shows together
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Degree-less romantic fools
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Cynics
♪ Parody inspired by “Nobody Does It Better”
