Film Not a deleted scene this time, but it might as well have been considering how few people have actually seen the highly underrated Don Roos film Bounce. It tells the story of an ad executive (Ben Affleck) who swaps plane tickets with a writer rushing home for the festive season who subsequently dies in a crash. The exec has a crisis of conscience and decides to go off and find the widow (Gwyneth Paltrow) and family of the man he believes died so he can live, just to see if they're OK. She's lovely and there is chemistry ... which leads us to this scene in which they go out on their first date, a baseball game and meal.
It's a perfect example of what stops this film becoming the tv movie it might have been destined to be. Rather than following the usual plan, we get to see the bits of a typical date which don't usually appear in movies. So there's Paltrow waiting in the stands for Affleck, obviously worried that he isn't going to show up (how many of us have experienced that), the moment when the man leaves the toilet to find the woman still waiting at the back of the line and this moment pictured when Ben and the audience really falls for Gwyneth. They're about to order, but her character Abby excuses herself and the camera follows as we realize she's spotted someone in a prom dress who's just come out of the bathroom and hasn't noticed a strip of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. Rather than embarrassing the girl by telling her, Abby simply put her foot on the paper until its stuck to her shoe then furiously shakes it off. The girl is unaware of the good deed and when Abby sits down there is no reference to it other than the pictured smile as though nothing has happened.
This is one of those idiosyncrasies of character which sometimes gets lost in romantic dramas and comedies under the weight of whatever high concept is in play. Like all the items that Harry lists about Sally at the end of the film in which they met, people don't fall in love because of the way they look - it's about who they are and how they make each other feel. This tiny selfless act to a stranger shows Affleck's character Buddy that if he's going to change himself and his world she's the one to help him, consciously and unconsciously. Films are always good at showing love at first sight. But in the real world, sometimes its gradual and in these few moments of Bounce we see those first inklings of someone falling hard.
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