Goodbye Lover (1999)
Director: Roland Joffe Cast: Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, Ellen DeGeneres, Mary-Louise Parker, Don Johnson Screenplay: Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow Producers: Chris Daniel, Patrick McDarrah, Alexandra Milchan, Joel Roodman Runtime: 102 min. US Distribution: Warner Bros. Rated R: sex, language, violence
Copyright 1999 Nathaniel R. Atcheson
I'm not sure why the formal structure of a film review requires that a brief synopsis of the plot be provided. Readers who have seen the film in question aren't going to be interested in a brief retelling of the story; they're just interested in the opinion of the critic. Readers who are considering seeing the picture aren't going to want to know a lot about the film before seeing it. Sometimes, however, the film itself begs a review with no plot synopsis. Roland Joffe's Goodbye Lover is this kind of film. The trailer tells far too much about the picture, and any plot synopsis that explains beyond the first ten minutes is too explicit. So, what you learn in the first ten minutes is as follows: Sandra (Patricia Arquette) likes sex. She likes sex with Ben (Don Johnson), who just happens to be her husband's brother. Her husband is Jake (Dermot Mulroney). What these three people do is something you shouldn't know going into the movie.
But that won't stop me from mentioning that the film is so busy and packed with subplots that you're likely to walk away feeling assaulted. Goodbye Lover is a strange little film, one that passes for entertainment but probably won't linger in the memory for long. I liked a lot of it, starting with a few of the performances, and there are some very clever sequences scattered about the movie. But it lacks inspiration, and more often feels derivative of flicks associated with Quentin Tarantino. The Tarantino genre can be put to good use (recent examples include Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Go), but Goodbye Lover doesn't deliver the way it could. It's also the kind of movie that ignores the characters in favor of an elaborate plot, and so emotional investment in the story is nearly impossible.
That's not to say that there aren't any characters, because there certainly are. They may be stock characters with one-note personalities, but they're all interesting to a degree. Arquette is perfectly lurid and ridiculously sexual, and the motivations behind Sandra's actions are fascinating; we're led to believe that she just wants a comfortable life (later, this turns out to mean that she wants a lot of money). Johnson and Mulroney are believable as brothers, though neither character is understandable on any human level. The interesting characters are on the periphery: Ellen DeGeneres (whom I love) is grand as Sgt. Pompano, a cynical cop who investigates the situation that Sandra creates. I also enjoyed Ray McKinnon, who plays Pompano's naive partner. Mary-Louise Parker is funny as the woman Ben seems to fall in love with; she appears intensely uncomfortable in every scene she's in. And I like Joffe's direction; there are a lot of nice stylistic touches, some tricky camera work, and an appropriate musical score by John Ottoman. I also loved the last scene, for it features a burst of irony so overt that I couldn't help but laugh.
One problem I noted early on is the lack of inspiration; much of the film marches relentlessly to its conclusion, force-feeding us obligatory scenes just because they're required to tie up loose ends. And you might be wondering how all these characters are worked into the labyrinthine plot that the screenwriters (Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow) have constructed. You might also wonder why the picture contains a serial killer named The Doctor, who kills young women by injecting them with a deadly chemical, or why Vincent Gallo is present as a hired killer, or why there are loud sex scenes that take place in a church (though I did enjoy the sarcastic references to religion and existence). Goodbye Lover is fluff, but it didn't have to be -- there is a place for complex black comedies, but the good ones make characterization essential to plot. And though Goodbye Lover is a convoluted mess, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen that couldn't be synopsized in two tightly-written paragraphs.
Psychosis Rating: 6/10
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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