This project was inspired by the same letter which inspired
Exit to Eden:
"I would like your opinion of Goodbye Lover (1998). To my way
of thinking, this is similar to Exit to Eden and just as frustrating to watch.
If I didn't know better, I would swear both of these movies had directorial
changes during the filming. Goodbye Lover features Patricia Arquette, looking
outstanding, and Mary Louise Parker, looking equally appetizing, in an erotic
thriller that was living up to its category. Then, once again, in the middle of
the movie, two moron cops enter the picture and from then on it's a dumb and
dumber comedy. I'm not sure that erotic thriller and comedy ever go together,
but they sure don't in this movie. This movie was working very nicely as an
erotic thriller, and it may be Patricia Arquette's juiciest role to date, but
what happened to it later is criminal. If you haven't seen it, the first half
is well worth the time/rental."
I'm not sure I agree with you on this one. I don't
think the film had just turned to comedy when the cops showed up. It started out
silly, with the offbeat sex scene between Arquette and Don Johnson at the church
organ, followed by Dermot Mulroney's crazy string of obscene comments about a
high-profile client of his posh firm, enhanced by Patricia Arquette's nutty
wardrobe and her obsession with The Sound of Music. It seems to me that this was
an idea that just didn't quite work right. It was supposed to function
simultaneously as an erotic thriller and a parody of erotic thrillers, kind of
Basic Instinct and Fatal Instinct rolled into one. That's not an unworkable
concept. After all, Shane Black basically took the same kind of idea and made it
into a brilliantly funny noir in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is a great story, a
good comedy, and a sexy movie all rolled into one. But it takes a genius to pull
it off. Shane Black is. The writers of Goodbye Lover are not.
I think you've already hit on two of the three main problems
with the film in your letter.
(1) Too little erotica. With a little more sex and nudity, it
might have made for a good little piece of erotica, but it cheated in that
department. There is basically nothing but cleavage, albeit very impressive
cleavage, from Arquette; and there's only a few quick peeks at Mary-Louise
Parker.
(2) Too much "clown suit" comedy. I enjoyed the fact that the
film took the basic thriller plot seriously even while spoofing it but I also
think, as you pointed out in your letter, that it should have been a hair more
serious about the police investigation. The film really could have benefited
from a little less goofing around by the cops. Some suspension of disbelief is
necessary in a comedy, but the Mormon cop was a bit over-the-top and stretched
my credulity too much, so that whenever he was pontificating about Jesus or
something, I suddenly felt that I had been jerked out of a reality-based
universe and dropped into a Rob Schneider movie, particularly at the end when
he broke the fourth wall and addressed the audience directly.
Both of those points are valid. I think, though, that you've
missed the main reason why this film doesn't quite work. The four main
characters are all, without exception, completely amoral and impossible to
identify with. The fifth and sixth characters are a supercilious Mormon cop and
Don Johnson. 'Nuff said. While Gay Perry and the Robert Downey character
provided the audience with an moral and emotional anchor in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, there are no
characters for us to like in Goodbye Lover. How cold is your movie when the most
likable part is played by Don Johnson? The result of this situation is that the
audience is left uninvolved in the tricky one-upmanship and has no emotional
stake in the double-crosses. We are essentially left watching a WWE match between bad guys.
Having made those points, I think the film has a lot of good
points as well. The Patricia Arquette character is offbeat and imaginatively
developed; some of the plot twists are interesting and unexpected; and the
photography is absolutely outstanding. The sex scenes are creatively filmed, and
in some respects I like very much where the director and DP chose to place the
camera in these scenes. While I'm praising the cinematography, I should also
mention that I loved the vertiginous 3/4 overhead angles of the penthouse
conference room. Of course, the photography ought to be good. The
cinematographer was two-time Oscar nominee Dante Spinotti, who has lensed a few
films you may have heard of:
- (8.40) -
L.A. Confidential
(1997)
- (8.00) -
Heat (1995)
- (7.90) -
The Insider
(1999)
- (7.60) -
The Last of the
Mohicans (1992)
- (7.50) -
Wonder Boys
(2000)
- (7.30) -
Red Dragon
(2002)
- (7.10) -
X-Men: The Last
Stand (2006)
- (7.10) -
Manhunter
(1986)
- (6.30) -
Crimes of the
Heart (1986)
- (6.30) -
Frankie and Johnny
(1991)
- (6.30) -
The Comfort of
Strangers (1990)
- (6.20) -
Nell (1994)
In fact, Spinotti is so good that it's kinda surprising that
he agreed to do Goodbye Lover. He was nominated for Oscars for The Insider and L.A.
Confidential, and could have been for Nell and Last of the Mohicans as well. (He
WON the cinematography BAFTA for Mohicans, but Oscar passed him over
completely.) I had forgotten that he did both versions of Manhunter (Red Dragon
is a remake.) They are both filmed beautifully, but the photographic approach is
as different as the two directors who helmed the projects.
On balance, I think Goodbye Lover has enough positives that it
can fairly be described as a watchable movie, albeit a disappointing one that
could have been so much better. While it failed as a theatrical release with a gross below $2
million, it was far too slick to be a straight-to-vid, and it does pass my two
litmus tests for popcorn movies on DVD: (1) it never moved me to reach for the
fast forward button; (2) it had the good sense to knock off Don Johnson early.
Unfortunately
it took much too long to get rid of Dermot Mulroney. And it never got rid of
Ellen Degeneres at all.
