Starting from the opening credits showing a fly-through of a partly cloudy sky, with bouncing O's softly ricocheting off the screen edges to land at the missing spots where O's would be in the credits, to the closing scene set at the beach with the sun shining and people playing, Bounce delivers an enjoyable romance over its 108 minute running time. It's a simple story -- man makes friend with another man, gets the second man killed, man goes to comfort widow and they fall in love -- that has depth of characters, an excellent dialogue, two great actors, and doesn't try to overreach itself.

We start with Buddy Amaral (Ben Affleck), a partner in a small advertising firm. Buddy has just finished a killer deal and wants to get back to Los Angeles. But Chicago is about to be snowed in so he and all the other passengers wait at the bar hoping their plane will be cleared for take-off. There he meets Mimi Praeger (Natasha Henstridge in a small role) and Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn in an even smaller role). Buddy is quite the ladies man and hits it off with Mimi, so when Buddy's flight is cleared he gives his ticket to Greg so that Greg can get home to his wife and two kids.

But Fate (or the scriptwriter) is a fickle mistress, and Infinity Flight 82 goes down with Greg Janello and over two hundred other people, leaving no survivors. Buddy is personally devastated. That could have been him, and he can't get past the notion that it was his fault that Greg died. Over the next nine months Buddy becomes a heavy drinker, culminating in a drunken display at some advertising awards banquet. After three months of rehab though, Buddy is ready to get back to work and resume his life.

The problem with the 12-step program are the 12 steps, one of which is to apologize to people you have hurt. Buddy decides to visit Greg's family and make amends. A quick Internet search gives him the Janello address, where he goes to talk to Abby Janello (Gwyneth Paltrow), Greg's widow. But he can't bring himself to face her, so he follows her to a small strip mall. Abby is a junior real estate agent and today she is at the strip mall to try to lease out one of the spaces to potential clients.

Enter Buddy, who goes in and eventually poses as a potential buyer. Buddy helps out Abby by tipping her off to a building that his company is looking to buy. In gratitude she takes him to a baseball game. It's a slowly building romance, as Buddy doesn't really want to get involved with Abby but he can't help himself from falling in love with her and her two kids. Meanwhile there is the big dark secret and the only real crisis point in the movie: what happens when Abby is told that Buddy had a hand in Greg's death? Sure, there are other ups and downs, like any relationship, but they pale to that climatic scene and its resolution.

I liked this movie. It's no surprise since I like romances. Ben Affleck does not do white knights very well so this role is better suited for his style. He pulls off a lot of emoting, you can see the conflicting emotions as Buddy thinks that keeping up his act with Abby is wrong. Gwyneth Paltrow is also very good in the movie. It's a sort of normal housewife role, nothing very glamorous about it. Brown hair, not much makeup, she still shines on the screen. Other people with significant roles are Joe Morton as Jim, Buddy's boss and friend; Jennifer Grey as an airline attendant, she's a friend of Buddy's and lets Greg onto the flight with Buddy's ticket; Caroline Aaron playing Abby's friend and confidant; and Johnny Galecki (I hope I got the actor right) who plays Buddy's unruly assistant.

There are a lot of little things that make the characters come alive. Abby talking about taking up smoking to kick her nicotine patch addiction. Buddy afraid to fly but going anyway to show Abby's kids that it's perfectly safe. Galecki's character commenting that "it's refreshing working for someone that you don't have to look up to" when Buddy tells his assistant that he doesn't want to take any calls from Abby. Although the plot is not extremely original (and it's hard to do that with a mostly romantic movie, I wouldn't even classify Bounce as a romantic comedy), it has witty dialogue and kept me entertained throughout. So I recommend it.