Love at any age

Film review: The Rebound

When I was much younger, people openly frowned upon older women who went out with much younger men. We called these young men “gold-diggers” who broke the matronas’ hearts after they had squeezed every possible centavo off their pockets and ran away with expensive cars, Rolex watches and designer suits. An older woman who fell truly in love with a much younger “Papa” (as in papa-aralin, papa-gamutin, papa-liguan, etc.) had to keep the relationship under wraps knowing that the situation would create a scandal if ever word got out.

But the advent of cosmetics (and cosmetic surgery depending on how vain one is), fitness gurus and great skin experts like my dermatologist Dr. Isabel Nazal, have successfully made ladies my age — 40 and above — look one to three decades younger. To the great pride of these women’s husbands, they still get lustful stares from other men, envious looks from other women, and the cliché wolf-whistles from construction workers (haha ha!).

Of late, however, in women’s gatherings, single ladies (which include those who are separated or those who have unscrupulous husbands who have more time for their queridas) aged 40 and above openly talk about their much younger beaus and instead of reacting with shock and disdain, other women shriek and giggle in delight. Gone are the days of discouraging looks, finger wagging and warnings of doom. Now, we even applaud and cheer them on to go for it. The label “cougar,” far from being pejorative, is carried with pride. In fact, no similarly “positive” coinage for males has come about, with the DOM tag still being the term of current usage. Hey, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have been passionately in love with each other for quite awhile now, so if celebrities can have it and be open about it, why can’t regular folk?

In the movie The Rebound, highly educated housewife-for-the-sake-of-the-family Catherine Zeta-Jones, as Sandy, after catching her husband cheating, runs off with her two children to New York City to forget, and start a new life. There she finds her true self — an actually very intelligent, organized and driven female who all these years as a married woman could not even bring out her voice whenever her husband was around. She finds her real worth when her superiors in her new job notice how creative and efficient she is. And as a new career woman, she hires 25-year-old Aram, played by Justin Bartha, to be the nanny of her kids. Upon the advice of her best friends, she tries dating but the men all turn out to be rotten like her husband. Before long, she realizes that she fully enjoys the moments with the charming male nanny (in the same way that her children enjoy his company) and that there is that growing magnetism drawing them closer to each other.

Aside from its very interesting subject, my friends from way back in grade school and I purposely went to watch this movie together because of Zeta-Jones. As expected, we were mesmerized by her beauty. She acted so naturally that we could feel ourselves reciting every single invective she would exclaim in anger against her evil husband at every opportunity (actually, we wanted to go inside the movie screen to punch the scumbag ourselves! Hahaha). It was not lost on us either that in real life, Zeta-Jones is herself in a long-standing relationship with ’70s TV heartthrob Michael Douglas many, many years her senior.

Surprisingly, we also found that we were equally impressed with the acting of the young Bartha whose character we found ourselves totally in love with especially, when he shamelessly professed his great love for Zeta-Jones’ character despite the15-year age difference (ahhhhh).

The script is hilarious and witty. The actors playing the kids were fantastic and the other characters all provided great comedic moments and acting support. As we went in a group, we laughed our hearts out almost every minute or so. And as the movie progressed and it successfully showed their rightness for one another, we prayed that the story would close with the two ending up together.

The Rebound is well-directed and very well-written. I like that Zeta-Jones was shown to look really in her 40s but still oozing with sex appeal. I loved the part where her character musters the resolve and brings Aram to meet her officemates, braving the possible negative reactions. It also moved me when the young Aram speaks of the primordial importance of doing what would make a person happy and being with people whose company one enjoys. The movie is what moviegoers should watch to be entertained and to have a good time. Needless to say, it is a do-not-miss-film for couples with perfect chemistry and who are totally in love with each other and yet who still think they are star-crossed, ill-fated lovers because of their age.

(E-mail me at [email protected] or text 0927-5000833.)