Plot
A soon-to-be-married man encounters an exciting stranger after his plane suffers an accident on takeoff.

Release Year: 1999

Rating: 5.2/10 (17,177 voted)

Critic's Score: 46/100

Director: Bronwen Hughes

Stars: Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck, Maura Tierney

Storyline
Ben Holmes, a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. All later flights are cancelled because of an approaching hurricane, so he is forced to hitch a ride in a Geo Metro with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara.

Cast:
Ben Affleck - Ben Holmes
Sandra Bullock - Sarah Lewis
Maura Tierney - Bridget Cahill
Steve Zahn - Alan
Blythe Danner - Virginia
Ronny Cox - Hadley
Michael Fairman - Richard Holmes
Richard Schiff - Joe
Athena Maria Bitzis - Juanita the Bull Tamer (as Athena Bitzis)
Afemo Omilami - Cab Driver
David Strickland - Steve Montgomery
Jack Kehler - Vic DeFranco
Janet Carroll - Barbara Holmes
Meredith Scott Lynn - Debbie
George Wallace - Max (as George D. Wallace)

Taglines: Why watch the Force when you can watch... Forces of Nature?

Release Date: 19 March 1999

Filming Locations: Beaufort, South Carolina, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $75,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $13,510,728 (USA) (21 March 1999) (2058 Screens)

Gross: $93,888,180 (Worldwide)

Runtime: 105 min

Trivia:
In a scene early in the movie, the two leads are shown sitting in an outdoor location in front of a large rusty globe. This location is in the city of Savannah, although the two characters have not reached Savannah by that point of the story.

Goofs:
Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in the window of the train when the kid is staring at Sarah from behind.

Quotes:
Ben Holmes: Sarah, everybody loves you, you just... you just think they're all wrong.

conventional romance with a surprise brave ending

Rating:

In "Forces of Nature," Ben Affleck stars as Ben, a repressed, buttoned-up stuffed shirt writer who, through a series of natural and manmade mishaps, ends up spending the several days before his impending marriage in the company of a freespirited, totally spontaneous and liberated young woman named Sarah, played by Sandra Bullock.

For the vast majority of the film's running time, the screenplay follows the conventions of the opposites-attract scenario almost slavishly. The script even provides Ben's fiancee with an overly-convenient replacement in the form of a now-hunky childhood friend she has not seen in years who rekindles sparks with her on the eve of the wedding.

Thus, the stage is set for the predictable true love romantic finale. But, damn, if the writers don't pull the rug out from under us and shatter the time-honored cliche. This is particularly surprising because, up to now, the film has exhibited no trace of iconoclasm in either its plot or character development. In fact, the screenplay is less a full-fledged narrative than a series of photographic montage sequences strung lazily together as Ben and Sarah engage in one cutesy situation and encounter after another. Thus, the unconventionality of the resolution comes as an even more stunning surprise than it otherwise might.

Affleck and Bullock are very appealing as two young people who complement each other's strengths and weaknesses and who learn to offer one another valuable life lessons. "Forces of Nature" emerges as one of those rare films that is, perhaps bizarrely, actually better in retrospect than in the watching.

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