Will Indie Cougar Rom-Com The Rebound End Catherine Zeta-Jones' Dry Spell?

Though treatment for her bipolar II disorder shouldn't hamper filming on her next two upcoming films, Catherine Zeta-Jones is, the LA Times points out, "in the midst of an unusual career dry spell." Since her debut in the 1990 French film Les 1001 Nuits, Zeta-Jones had appeared in projects almost every year or two, but she hasn't had a film open theatrically in wide release since 2007's No Reservations.

That could change if the independent romantic comedy The Rebound, directed by Bart Freundlich (The Myth of Fingerprints, Catch That Kid), lands a distribution deal. Zeta-Jones stars as a woman who leaves her cheating husband and falls for the sensitive younger man (The Hangover's Justin Bartha) she takes on as a nanny for her small children.

The Times also notes that The Rebound may be poised to take advantage of the popularity of the cougar phenomenon, which only leads to greater conundrums: Is "cougar" a term that cougar-eligible women actually like? And how much audience demand is there for the cougar-driven television shows (Real Housewives of Fill-in-the-Blank, Cougar Town) and films (like this) already out in the marketplace?

A greater hurdle for The Rebound to overcome could be that the film (according to anonymous sources cited in the piece), might not be very good -- and that's as decent an explanation as any for why it hasn't been picked up yet. (There's also the film's tagline: "Sometimes you need to move on... and sometimes, you need to sleep with a 25-year-old.")

Watch the trailer below to decide for yourself.

· Catherine Zeta-Jones movie remains AWOL [LAT]