BYE BYE LOVE
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1995, PG-13, 107 minutes [1 hour, 47 minutes] [comedy/lighthearted drama] starring: Matthew Modine (Dave), Randy Quaid (Vic), Paul Reiser (Donny), Janeane Garofalo (Lucille), produced by Sam Weisman, Gary David Goldberg, Brad Hall, written by Gary David Goldberg, Brad Hall, directed by Sam Weisman.
I didn't think that there could be anything worse than dating, but there is: dating after being divorced, especially if you have children, and "Bye Bye Love" proves that to be true.
Technically, there isn't a single plotline pushing this story along, it is just dropping in on the lives of three divorced fathers. Dave (Modine) is still actively dating, he tries to commit to one woman but often finds himself flirting with other women and not thinking rationally. Donny (Reiser) can't bring himself to date again, he worries too much about his daughter and doesn't want to go through all the trouble again. Neither does Vic (Quaid), although his problem isn't so much that he doesn't want to date again, he just can't get a date in the first place. All three of these buddies have children and we see how difficult it is to have a good relationship with a child when you can only see them once a week.
Weisman, Goldberg, and Hall use some unique techniques to make the story interesting by contrasting situations with other characters not directly associated with the three guys. There is a talk radio psychologist (Rob Reiner) who tries to help divorced people with their problems, but it's not as easy as the simple advice he gives which always seems to be giving the three dads headaches. We also meet Max (Johnny Whitworth), a typical teenage stud working at the local McDonald's where the fathers always seem to be eating. Of course he is a superficial slacker, but when he meets Walter (Ed Flanders), a 71-year-old widower, he becomes sensitive to the reality of the world and makes a new friend. I found this entire plotline completely unbelievable and distracting, there's no way a 17-year-old would befriend a 71-year-old.
Donny's daughter Emma meets Max at the McDonald's, flirts with him, and is then invited to a wild party. Max invites his new pal Walter, but this is just too predictable and cheesy. And since Emma is a teenage girl of a divorced couple, she is a brat. When she goes to the party she gets drunk and then takes her father's car for a joyride. And you can tell where the story will go from there.
There is a good scene in which Vic finally gets a blind date with a woman, Lucille (Garofalo), who he does not get along with because she is so strange. This was somewhat funny, but it had a sit-com feel to it, which is how I felt about the film as a whole.
"Bye Bye Love" is a real movie machine, but it does have one soft spot, that is the good characterization of the three divorced fathers and their daily anxieties they go through. It certainly was interesting to see how difficult it can be to be a divorced man in the 90s, but at times the films strays too far away from that point of interest and becomes rather sappy and melodramatic. I just wish the producers would make up their minds as to what kind of movie this is supposed to be - a comedy or a drama?
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