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Susan Granger's review of "GOODBYE, LOVER" (Warner Bros.)
This darkly comic, unpredictable, tantalizing thriller will confound you. In fact, I defy you to predict what happens when a saucy, seductive, manipulative real estate agent (Patricia Arquette), who is married to an alcoholic public relations exec (Dermot Mulroney), becomes the predator in an obsessive affair with his slick, pompous, high-powered older brother (Don Johnson) who, in turn, is adored by his mousy, insecure assistant (Mary-Louise Parker). It's their warped penchant for vicious murder and grisly mayhem which summon a nasty, cynical, wise-cracking detective (scene-stealing Ellen De Generes) to the scene. In Los Angeles, self-realization and upward mobility aren't easy tasks and, with this sociopathic quartet of characters, nothing is what it seems to be - including the familiar score of "The Sound of Music," which is integral to the story. Writers Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow have devised what Warner Bros. describes as a "film gris," as opposed to "noir," which is apt, since "gris" in French means "gray," and there certainly are a lot of shady gray areas in this shrewd, superficial, twisted tale of avarice. And, in a change of pace for his career, director Roland Joffe ("The Killing Fields," "The Mission," "The Scarlet Letter") has embraced and enhanced the imaginative, off-center wryness of it. He keeps the tension taut, revealing only select pieces of the deliciously intricate puzzle, one at a time, with credit going to the superb lighting and camera work of Dante Spinotte ("L.A. Confidential"). On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Goodbye, Lover" is a cynical yet captivating 7. It's so irreverent, amoral, and gleefully exuberant that even the most jaded will get a surprise or two.
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