Roger Ebert devised a term for film noir that is jokey, sanitized and lacking that air of desperation so central to the genre. He called it "deadpan noir", which is precisely what "Destiny Turns on the Radio" was, and what Rolland Joffe's execrable new film "Goodbye, Lover" is. It is so groundless and putrid that you'll leave the theater in disgust for all the wrong reasons.
Patricia Arquette stars as Sandra, a real-estate dealer who is having an affair with a PR executive (Don Johnson), who is also an organist at the local church. Their frequent trysts occur at the houses she plans to sell to prospective buyers.
Johnson wants to quit the affair, though, because Sandra's alcoholic husband (the always unconvincing Dermot Mulroney) is suspicious and poised to kill her lover. What makes things even worse is that the two men involved are brothers. And Johnson, you see, is beginning an affair with his secretary, the underused Mary-Louise Parker. Yes, I could feel the puzzle pieces of noir start to fit neatly with aplomb and true danger. And it is around this time that the movie comes tumbling down like the Berlin Wall.
Without giving too much of the plot away, I can safely add that the movie's twists and turns are predictable to the core, and that the motive behind a murder in the film is so that the protagonists can collect a tidy insurance settlement. We have heard that plot idea before - it goes back as far as the classic Double Indemnity, along with a million other films. But "Goodbye, Lover" does a curious thing - it becomes a sitcomish noir tale.
In other words, the perilous machinations of noir becomes a set-up for an elongated joke, a put-on, especially when Ellen DeGeneres turns up as a cynical detective. Her comic timing is flawless and she is fun to watch...but what is she doing in this movie? It seems as if we are in the latest "Ellen" episode with a colorful cast of characters behaving like buffoons.
"Goodbye, Lover" is an unredeeming piece of junk with no trace of humanity or purpose. Arquette hardly dazzles as a siren with a fetish for "The Sound of Music," unlike the alluring quality she displays in the underrated "Lost Highway." Only Johnson seems to invest some interest and charisma in his shopworn role, but it is short-lived. Roland Joffe's direction is surefooted, but all the superb camerawork and canted angles can't do justice to an absurdly uneven, rottenly scripted film.
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