Remember When Ben Affleck Tried to Be a Rom-Com Guy?

Forces of Nature is an oddly bleak romantic scenario from the jump: Affleck’s character, also named Ben, is en route to his wedding in Savannah, Georgia, and seated on the plane next to a hot lady in a lot of eyeliner, Sarah, as she flees an emotionally abusive husband to sell their Georgia bagel shop in order to use the money to get back a 6-year-old son of whom she’s lost custody. It’s not an ideal time for either to be pursuing new romantic interests, but the central idea of the film seems to be “shit happens, so maybe just let hot people dance and kiss despite their other commitments.” When the plane crashes, the pair have a scant few days to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles their way to their various engagements in Savannah, stopping by K-Mart along the way for some very ’90s tearaway track pants that I still covet 21 years later and nearly-but-not-quite boning several times.

the role in Forces of Nature, much like Sandra Bullock’s messy turn, doesn’t quite suit him.

The film is an early entry into the world of the Marc Lawrence-penned rom-com and introduces Sandra Bullock, who would later go on to star in other Lawrence films like Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice, as his occasional muse. However, the role of Sarah was a brief departure for Bullock, who already had a rom-com hit with While You Were Sleeping a few years before. The more typical Sandra Bullock romantic lead would soon become a Type A workaholic who must swap a need for control for romance with a man who teaches her to relax a little. In Forces of Nature, however, Bullock plays the exact opposite: that of the messy problem lady whose haphazard approach to life at first grates on the nerves of the Type A male lead before he finally surrenders to her whimsy— She smokes pot! She signs him up to strip dance at a gay bar! Kooky and sexy!

Yet one of the reasons Bullock is so good in her control freak turns is the fact that her natural charisma offsets the rigidity of those characters. So when she finally loosens up and dances, the revelation feels like a victory, as opposed to the inverse Bullock in Forces of Nature, where her still-compelling charm makes the character arc of “being a slightly better mother” a really depressing denouement in what is meant to be a lighthearted, low-stakes film.

And in the role of “slightly annoyed and uncomfortable man usually wearing a bowling shirt and/or blazer” is Ben Affleck, who would go on to play iterations of this man in Bounce with then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow, Gigli opposite then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and in his own press junkets for films of which he seemed less than proud, giving rise to the “Sad Affleck” meme. But for all his practice, the role in Forces of Nature, much like Sandra Bullock’s messy turn, doesn’t quite suit him. It could be the lack of chemistry between the two leads, who seem content to stand as far apart from one another as possible while their banter makes one another simultaneously smug and sleepy. Of the two, though, it’s Ben, swallowed in his oversized ’90s bowling shirt, who either oversells it or has tapped into a deep wellspring of Stanislavskian motivation, desiring not just to be liberated from this road trip but from his contract for this film entirely.

Throughout her career, Bullock has managed to make movies that are perhaps not very well-written or plotted, such as Hope Floats, much more enjoyable than they should be. It’s her special gift as an actor, which makes her an ideal romantic comedy star since rom-coms are often entirely implausible and filled with sentences that should be embarrassing but also can be incredibly satisfying if everyone commits to playing along with the ruse. Affleck’s downfall, on the other hand, has been choosing projects that do not seem to play to his strengths as an actor or that he doesn’t seem to want to be in, including that whole Batman venture and Forces of Nature. When Ben gets embarrassed by a movie’s potential for badness, the entire project falls apart. His best work comes from playing parts in more complicated, “thinky” thrillers that put his sometimes smarminess and surly discomfort in response to that knee-jerk smarminess on full display, like Gone Girl or the sadly-unseen-by-anyone-but-me State of Play.

It’s not that Ben Affleck isn’t appealing—even grimacing for the cameras carrying a tray of coffee, he’s the guy at a party loudly proclaiming he didn’t want to come to that one finds oneself standing too close to, trying to convince him the party isn’t that bad. The problem is, when the movie is that bad, one tends to agree with grouchy Ben that we should all get out of here.