Its straightness is more than a matter of het-romance. Bounce is straight in the sense that it stars Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, and does not include Opposite of Sex -style bitchiness, much less wily jokes about masturbation, Hollywood morality, and the Planet Maturia. Such adherence to straight conventions, however, is Bounce 's draggiest, least interesting aspect. The plot is more or less what you'd imagine for a movie starring such Hollywood anointeds. The plane crashes.
Buddy feels guilty and drinks to excess.
Slightly less conventional is Buddy's buddy, Jim, who turns out to be a Not Very Good Friend, more interested in preserving their business than in Buddy's emotional health. I suppose this might excuse Buddy's generally bad behavior, his inability to fess up, though I think the more apparent reason is that if he told Abby who he was, the movie would be over, since the primary straight-romance convention is that when the couple commits, the movie is over. As per formula, you worry. It's hard to say precisely why this sort of melodrama is appealing, or rather, to whom it appeals. And this may be the most salient and saddest observation offered by Bounce , that the games in non-ghettoized movies are by definition obvious, predictable, and dull dull dull.