Bounce

This lean, low-key story about love, fate, commitment, deception, feelings of guilt and both personal and professional spin control is this year’s best date movie. Ben Affleck plays a hotshot Los Angeles ad-agency partner who gives his boarding pass to a stranded writer (Tony Goldwyn) at weather-ravaged O’Hare Airport. He later learns that the plane has crashed with no survivors and seeks out the scribe’s widow (Gwyneth Paltrow). Affleck and Paltrow’s tabloid-touted chemistry has been harnessed and honed by director Don Roo (The Opposite of Sex) into a slowly mushrooming, emotional depth charge as farfetched plot points are softened by soulful performances, credible compassion and gem-like pockets of dialogue.