Cast: Ashley Bell, Zach Cregger, Sara Paxton
Director: Bryan Poyser
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy
Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage of the BFI London Film Festival. For more information on the festival visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff and follow the event on Twitter at @bfi.
The Bounceback, helmed by Bryan Polser (Dear Pillow, Lovers of Hate) is an attempted antithesis of the Hollywood Rom-Com that, in its futile efforts to be liberatingly and sexually fearless, ends up a crude and forgettable pile of messy storylines and dirty quips. As open-minded as a cinemagoer can be, The Bounceback puts such character traits to the ultimate test; the lack of engaging narrative arcs only magnify this difficulty. The film holds the rare achievement of being difficult to watch, not because it’s visually assaulting or gorily gruesome; it’s simply just a badly made film. It has its (few) strengths, sorely outweighed by its mound of poorly miscalculated endeavours.
The film is ostensibly crude for the sake of being crude, catering to a very narrow audience of people with that sense of mindless humour. The comicality of the film (if indeed, there is any) is cheap and thoughtless; The Bounceback represents the singular reason that intelligent comedies are becoming scarcer and scarcer.
The Bounceback follows the story of Stan and Cathy, a couple whom have recently broken up due to distance; Cathy attends medical school in New York whilst Stan has adventured to Los Angeles in the pursuit of a career in film. Stan, still reeling from his heartbreak, follows Cathy on Facebook to find out her plans, keeping tabs on her activities the hope of maintaining some sort of withered connection with her. Upon seeing that she is to spend a weekend in Austin TX, he spontaneously decides to fly over that weekend as well in the hope of bumping into her. Meeting up with their mutual friend, Cathy and Stan never actually bump into one another, although the two remain in close proximity. Stan instead focuses on his friend’s attempts in the local ‘Air Sex competition’. During Stan’s wild nights out and Cathy’s endeavours on the town with the promiscuous Kara, the pair both meet potential new love interests but will their finished relationship stop them in their tracks?
The Bounceback is as clichéd as it sounds; completely devoid of realism, the film has no direction whatsoever. The abrupt and immensely dissatisfying conclusion only leaves a bitter taste in the mouth; the build up, the constant wondering of ‘will they/won’t they’ leads to a severely disappointing anticlimax, but what The Bounceback lacks in narrative, it certainly makes up for in abhorrent puns. The film is ostensibly crude for the sake of being crude, catering to a very narrow audience of people with that sense of mindless humour. The comicality of the film (if indeed, there is any) is cheap and thoughtless; The Bounceback represents the singular reason that intelligent comedies are becoming scarcer and scarcer.
Despite its failed intentions, the dramas of each character do unfold nicely; as previously mentioned, there is an enjoyable build-up of tension as to the exact outcome of the complex situation. In their respective roles, the actors fulfill the requirements to satisfying lengths; there are no complaints to be made against the cast. However, the characters they portray are flat and two-dimensional clichés of every imaginable teenage trope. Stan’s best friend Jeff is a wild and free-spirited lothario that leads Stan astray. Unsurprisingly, Cathy’s best friend can be described using the exact same words. The complete lack of imagination awarded the characters is astounding; the recycling of certain traits to multiple characters is repeatedly and painfully obvious.
In their respective roles, the actors fulfill the requirements to satisfying lengths; there are no complaints to be made against the cast. However, the characters they portray are flat and two-dimensional clichés of every imaginable teenage trope.
The slapstick comedy of the Air Sex scenes may be humorous to the occasional audience member but aside from that, The Bounceback is a poorly executed mess of a clichéd and well-explored premise. In its scattered direction, the film even lightly presses on the heavy ‘we sometimes want what we can’t have’ scenario but stumbles at the threshold. The film doesn’t quite carry enough dynamism to pull that endeavour off. A merit of the film is its pace however; the upbeat nature of the film doesn’t allow the audience to bore too easily. Though the narrative is drenched with unoriginal fibers, this can be accepted by audiences that just want to enjoy some mindless fun. Immediately forgettable, unfulfilling but occasionally entertaining, The Bounceback isn’t a film that anybody should rush to see, but should see through to the end if they do.
[notification type=”star”]36/100 ~ AWFUL. Immediately forgettable, unfulfilling but occasionally entertaining, The Bounceback isn’t a film that anybody should rush to see, but should see through to the end if they do. [/notification]
