Goodbye Lover

Directed by Roland Joffé. With Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, Mary-Louise Parker, Ellen DeGeneres. Ben and Sandra are hot and provocative lovers, but Sandra is unfortunately married to Ben's younger brother Jake, and soon Jake will find out about Ben.

Goodbye Lover (1998) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

I've just transcribed no less than 11 pages of notes I scribbled during "Goodbye Lover,'' and my mind boggles. The plot is so labyrinthine that I'd completely forgotten the serial killer named The Doctor, who murders young women by injecting curare into their veins with a syringe. When a character like The Doctor is an insignificant supporting character, a movie's plate is a little too full, don't you think? "Goodbye Lover'' is not so much a story as some kind of a board game, with too many pieces and not enough rules. The characters careen through the requirements of the plot, which has so many double-reverses that the real danger isn't murder, it's being disemboweled by G-forces. There's no way to care about the characters, because their fates are arbitrary--determined not by character, not by personality, but by the jigsaw puzzle constructed by the screenwriters (there are three of them--which for this material represents a skeleton crew).

Goodbye Lover summary of box office results, charts and release information and related links.

Aglossy, sexy, twisty comic thriller, "Goodbye Lover" may be the first film which you'll be able to say is enjoyable as long as Don Johnson is in it. Entertaining for a while on the pulpiest superficial level, thanks in large measure to its lush physical trappings, this amoral tale of multiple murders and betrayals should have been funnier than it is by half and finally becomes just too silly and convoluted for its own good. Appearing out of competition in the official selection in Cannes, pic is far from a festival-type film and looks destined for just so-so B.O. in September general release.

Goodbye Lover is a smarmy mix of laughs and thrills that stars Patricia Arquette and Dermot Mulroney as a couple from hell. She sells expensive real estate; he's an ad exec. She's fucking his brother (Don Johnson); he's fucking his assistant (Mary-Louise Parker). When one of this motley crew is murdered, the investigation is headed by a detective (Ellen DeGeneres) who's made her own share of moral compromises. Director Roland Joffe, whose career has reached the heights of The Killing Fields and the career low of Demi Moore's The Scarlet Letter, is in Demi territory here. Besides, any movie in which Don Johnson gives the best performance is its own worst enemy.

In what was described as "a sarcastic thriller," a detective (Ellen DeGeneres) follows a peculiar trail and encounters two brothers (Dermot Mulroney, Don Johnson) while she attempts to nail down the solution to a baffling murder.

Goodbye Lover is a comedic neo-noir film about a murder plot surrounding an alcoholic advertising agency worker and his adulterous wife. The film was directed by Roland Joffé, and stars Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, Don Johnson, Ellen DeGeneres, and Mary-Louise Parker. The film premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival,[2] before being released theatrically in 1999. Reshoots of the films were shot on Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills, and the ending of the film was changed.