After a stellar beginning to the last decade (‘Chicago’, ‘Intolerable Cruelty’, ‘Traffic’), Catherine Zeta Jones seems to have fallen off the radar with some lacklustre rom-coms (‘No Reservations’, ‘Death Defying Acts’). Is this the movie to put her back on the map?

Sandy (Catherine Zeta Jones) is a blissfully happy family woman. That is, until she discovers her husband has been cheating on her, and uproots her and the kids to New York City. Overwrought, she hires nice-but-easily led Aram (Justin Bartha) to be her nanny. The pair soon get close and a ‘rebound’ romance develops between 40 year old Sandy and 25 year old Aram, but is their fling just that, or can they overcome the age gap (and friends’ comments) to be together?

So, a cute if not terribly interesting set up for a movie- an older woman falls for a younger man after her divorce. Will it work out? By the end of this you won’t really care. For something that could deal with serious issues, the story seems to wander through various comedic scenes without even touching anything near reality. There’s no feeling of vulnerability, no hurt, just a blaze of anger and ambition that makes the lead character very hard to like. The age issue also becomes so prominent, the romance is completely lacking.

Perhaps a reason for the lack of on screen heat is the totally mismatched leads. Zeta Jones just doesn’t feel like an overworked Mum, and there’s only so much sympathy one can feel for someone who has to struggle on with a luxury apartment in Manhattan. Bartha looks uncomfortable throughout, devoid of charisma for much of the film. By the baffling end sequence (you’ll know it when you see it), you’ll be hard pressed to see why on Earth this particular story was worth pursuing, as it seems the film reaches no particular conclusion.

A jumbled, careless film that reflects an ongoing problem in Zeta Jones’s recent output- her roles are so overblown that any on screen romance is squashed by the focus being totally on her. Add to that zero humour, zero chemistry and zero surprises, even in a summer somewhat bereft of quality there is zero reason to give this any of your time.

The Rebound is released on July 23.