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Goodbye Lover
USA/Germany 1998
Reviewed by Mike Higgins
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Los Angeles. Estate agent Sandra Dunmore wants her lover, PR guru Ben, to kill Jake, her husband and his brother. Instead Ben breaks off with her and starts seeing Peggy, his ambitious employee. Jake tells his brother he knows of the affair he had with Sandra, whereupon Jake and Sandra murder the heavily-insured Ben.
Detective Rita Pompano and her assistant Nathaniel Rollins begin an investigation. Peggy claims to have secretly wed Ben just before his death. Jake and Sandra hire an assassin to kill Peggy. It transpires Jake is seeing Peggy; Jake pays the assassin to kill his wife instead. Sandra learns of Jake and Peggy's romance and kills the couple. Pompano realises that Sandra, the sole beneficiary of an $8 million insurance pay-out, is responsible for the three killings. The detective blackmails her into splitting the money before killing the assassin as he is about to murder Sandra. One year later, Sandra and Pompano are seen shopping together in LA's expensive boutiques.
Review
A convoluted reworking of Billy Wilder's 1944 classic Double Indemnity, Goodbye Lover aspires to be a glossy, off-beat film noir. However, director Roland Joffé's film demonstrates neither the lightness of touch nor the generic discrimination necessary for such a precise exercise. In fact, Joffé's description of Goodbye Lover as film gris stands as an unwittingly acute comment on its muddled execution. Goodbye Lover has been languishing in the Warner vaults since its completion two years ago, a delay that afflicts it with more than the stigma of neglect. Moreover, its production roughly coincided with the outing of Ellen DeGeneres in 1997. One need hardly elucidate the overtones of DeGeneres' final, intimate interrogation of Sandra, bound, horizontal and bathed in red light, or their cosy departure together in the film's final scene. Had it achieved a more timely release, Goodbye Lover might just have got away with this coy allusion. As it is, Joffé's move from drama (The Killing Fields, The Scarlet Letter) to contemporary black comedy is culpable on other counts.
In the film's favour, cinematographer Dante Spinotti updates the baroque air of sleaze he brought to L.A. Confidential, lingering over the upwardly-mobile Sandra's stiletto heels and the harsh lines of her blonde page-boy bob. (The enthralling figure of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity comes to mind.) Costume designer Theadora Van Runkle adds a playful edge to this decadence, squeezing Arquette into some memorably vampish parodies of the outfits in which she clothed Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde. (1967).
It's a pity then that the tepid script (by first-time screenwriter Ron Peer, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolaw) fails to echo this ripe visual wit, particularly in the character of Sandra. An unlikely church volunteer - her organ-loft seduction of Ben Dunmore during a choir practice is the film's most striking scene - Sandra belts out the hits of The Sound of Music to pep herself up. Handling such an ambiguous protagonist is new territory for Joffé, however, and he makes heavy work out of imbuing the murderous Sandra with an ironic, 'can-do' irrepressiveness. With each double-cross itemised in prolix detail, she's promptly lost in a welter of immaterial plot exposition.
Furthermore, the knowing inclusion of clips from Mildred Pierce (1945) and Pickup on South Street (1953) serves only to expose what the film lacks in comparison: namely, any hint at the underlying cause of Sandra's relentless self-advancement and a palpable suspense surrounding the myriad betrayals.
Patricia Arquette struggles as Sandra, despite imbuing similar femme fatale roles in Lost Highway and The Hi-Lo Country with memorable intensity. Partner-in-crime Pompano is little more than a hard-headed reprisal of DeGeneres's sitcom persona. The intended joke is that the dogged and unfashionable Pompano, a vision in plaid, eventually gets the better of the glamorous Sandra. Joffé even tries to suggest the pair's kinship by revealing a shared penchant for mirrors and cameras. However, much of the energy that could have been channelled into this potentially interesting subversion ends up in prurient speculation about Pompano and Sandra's developing relationship. The unfortunate consequence of this is to split up the most engaging partnership, that between the cynical Pompano and her naive Mormon partner Rollins (a winningly gormless turn from Ray McKinnon). As a misjudgement, it's minor compared to the catalogue that precedes it.
Credits
- Producers
- Alexandra Milchan
- Patrick McDarrah
- Joel Roodman
- Chris Daniel
- Screenplay
- Ron Peer
- Joel Cohen
- Alec Sokolow
- Story
- Ron Peer
- Director of Photography
- Dante Spinotti
- Editor
- William Steinkamp
- Production Designer
- Stewart Starkin
- Music
- John Ottman
- ©Monarchy Enterprises B.V. and Regency Entertainment (USA), Inc
- Production Companies
- Regency Enterprises presents an Arnon Milchan/Gotham Entertainment Group/Lightmotive production in association with Taurus Film
- Executive Producers
- Arnon Milchan
- Michael G. Nathanson
- Co-executive Producer
- Jon Cornick
- Line Producer
- Gerald T. Olson
- Associate Producer
- Van Spurgeon
- Lightmotive Executive
- Lennox Wiseley
- Production Associate
- David Minkowski
- Production Controller
- Bonnie Daniels
- Production Co-ordinator
- Diane Gutterud
- Unit Production Manager
- Gerald T. Olson
- Location Manager
- Kevin Halloran
- 2nd Unit Director
- Gerald T. Olson
- Assistant Directors
- Gregory Jacobs
- Rosemary C. Cremona
- Jim Goldthwait
- Script Supervisor
- Ira Hurwitz
- Casting
- Shari Rhodes
- Joseph Middleton
- Principal Associate:
- Michelle Morris
- Close Range Aerial Photography
- Flying Cam Inc
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Kyle C. Rudolph
- Camera Operators
- Gary Jay
- Peter Gulla
- Flying Cam Inc:
- Louis Prezelin
- Digital Special Effects/3D Sequences
- Medialab
- Digital Effects Supervisor/Compositing Artist:
- Eve Ramboz
- Digital Production Supervisor:
- Annie Dautane
- Technical Supervisor:
- Phillipe Reinaudo
- Digital Matte-Painting Artist:
- Jean-Marie Vives
- Computer Graphic Artist:
- Jean Baptiste Lere
- Digital Production Manager:
- Olivia Moreau
- System Manager:
- Michael Roy
- Operator:
- Arassou Kichenassamy
- Special Effects
- Performance World
- Special Effects Co-ordinator:
- Bruno Stempel
- Special Effects Co-co-ordinator:
- Jerry Williams
- Additional Editing
- Richard Francis-Bruce
- Art Director
- Bruce Alan Miller
- Set Designers
- Gae Buckley
- Caroline Quinn
- Set Decorator
- Tessa Posnansky
- Costume Designer
- Theadora Van Runkle
- Costume Supervisor
- Gilda Texter
- Additional Costumes
- Deena Appel
- Key Make-up Artist
- Debbie Zoller
- Body Make-up
- Kaori Turner
- Effects Make-up
- James Robert MacKinnon
- Hair Styles Design
- Barbara Lorenz
- Main/End Titles Design
- Nina Saxon/New Wave Design Group
- Titles
- Howard Anderson Co
- Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Conductor
- Larry Groupé
- Adult Choir
- Mountainside Master Chorale, conducted by Bruce Rogers
- High School Choir
- Mt. San Antonio College Madrigal Singers, conducted by Bruce Rogers
- Music Orchestrations
- Larry Groupé
- John Ottman
- Frank Macchia
- Musical Supervision
- Michael McQuarn
- Tracey Edmonds
- Score Supervisor
- Damon Intrabartolo
- Music Editor
- Amanda Goodpaster
- Recording/Mixing Engineer
- Darrel Harvey
- Choral Music Consultant
- Dr Harold Daugherty
- Soundtrack
- "Fill My Cup Lord" by Richard Blanchard; "Goodbye" by Brian Mashburn, performed by Save Ferris; "Chained Minds" by Jonathan Owens, performed by Casual; "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by/performed by James Brown; "My Favorite Things", "Maria", "So Long, Farewell", "Climb Ev'ry" "Mountain" by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II; "I Have Confidence", "Something Good" by Richard Rodgers; "Perry Mason Theme" by Fred Steiner; "Do You Love Me That Much" by Liz Hengber, Will Robinson, performed by Peter Cetera; "Propaganda" by Brett Mazur (aka Epic), Orreolondo Mallory (aka Berchee), Gene Murphy (aka Shuv), performed by Wessyde Goon Squad
- Production Sound Mixer
- Pawel Wdowczak
- Re-recording Mixers
- Michael John Ross
- Mathew Waters
- Four Media Company:
- Wayne Artman
- Robert Harman
- Frank Jones
- Recordists
- Brian Harman
- Brian Pierret
- Engineering
- Jim Albert
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Gregory M. Gerlich
- Dialogue Editors
- David Grant
- Louis Creveling
- Robert C. Jackson
- Yuri Reese
- Thomas Jones
- Jason George
- Walter Spencer
- Danielle Ghent-Fiorello
- Supervising Sound Effects Editor
- Cormac Funge
- Sound Effects Editors
- Javier Bennassar
- Benjamin Cook
- Dorian Cheah
- Lisle Engle
- ADR
- Mixer:
- Alan Freedman
- Supervising Editor:
- Susan Shin
- Foley
- Walkers:
- Ossama Khuluki
- Diane Marshall
- David Fein
- Ken Dufva
- Mixer:
- Mary Erstad
- Editor:
- David Mann
- Police Adviser
- Chic Daniel
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rick Barker
- Animal Trainers
- Mark Forbes
- Birds & Animals
- Pilot, Flying Cam Inc:
- Emmanuel Previnaire
- Film Extracts
- Pickup on South Street
(1953)- Mildred Pierce
(1945)- Cast
- Patricia Arquette
- Sandra Dunmore
- Dermot Mulroney
- Jake Dunmore
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Rita Pompano
- Mary-Louise Parker
- Peggy Blane
- Don Johnson
- Ben Dunmore
- Ray McKinnon
- Nathaniel Rollins
- Alex Rocco
- Detective Crowley
- André Gregory
- Reverend Finlayson
- John Neville
- Bradley
- Jo Nell Kennedy
- Evelyn
- Akane Nelson
- receptionist
- Kevin Cooney
- company man 1
- Will Foster Stewart
- Dennis
- Nina Siemaszko
- newscaster
- David Brisbin
- Mr Brodsky
- Lisa Eichhorn
- Mrs Brodsky
- George Furth
- Mr Merritt
- Barry Newman
- Senator Lassetter
- Michael Krawic
- medical examiner
- Max Perlich
- Will
- Quincy Samuel Smith
- Larry
- Andi Chapman
- cop
- John Prosky
- forensic cop
- Richard T. Jones
- Michael P. Byrne
- Michael William James
- detectives
- Frances Bay
- old woman
- Pavel Cerny
- cabbie
- Ernie Lively
- sheriff
- Danny Goldring
- forensic officer
- Rob LaBelle
- minister
- Leslie Jordan
- Homer
- Lou Myers
- police captain
- Doug Spinuzza
- gang-banger
- Lee Weaver
- old codger
- Newell Alexander
- minister 2
- Molly Hager
- young girl 2
- Gerald T. Olson
- politician
- Kenny Moskow
- commercial guy
- Bruce Rogers
- choir conductor
- Mary Lippman
- Joan
- Ken Lam
- coroner's assistant
- Darrick Lam
- Marcus M. Shirey
- police officers
- Charles Gladney
- cop at college
- Lisa Cohen
- battered woman
- Chic Daniel
- Detective Daniel
- Jay B. Yarnell
- Detective Yarnell
- Mike Singer
- company man 2
- Gary Sear
- company man 3
- Erin Keim
- young girl 3
- Angela Blattenberger
- Bianca Davis
- Demi Dustman
- Jenna Escoto
- Courtney Hansen
- Candace Kovacic
- Juliana Kubicki
- Brittany Mahurin
- Kellie Roberson
- Julie Shapiro
- Ashley Thornton
- Natalie Thornton
- girls chorus
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Warner Bros Distributors (UK)
- 9,081 feet
- 100 minutes 54 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- FotoKem
- Super35 [2.35:1]