bhouser

My love for this movie is a bit of a mystery. It seems Bye, Bye, Love would appeal most to divorced parents looking for some redemption for their messed up lives. But I'm a single guy in his thirties who grew up in a very healthy family.

But every time I catch this movie replaying on one of the movie channels, I just can't switch away. I guess it appeals to me because it does many things well. Bye, Bye, Love has strong, well-developed, interesting characters. It has comedy, romance, and tension. It makes good use of music and includes some great familiar tunes. The acting is superb. And it paints a pretty realistic picture of what it's like to be a divorced parent in modern America (I assume) while being quite entertaining.

I'm surprised this movie hasn't gotten more attention as it remains one of my all-time favorites.

This one worked for me. The superb acting and fine camera work made this very believable. The scenes are some of the most realistic I've seen. Particularly noteworthy are the scenes involving extreme tension.

Throughout the picture I felt an urging to like these characters, sensing that they were, deep down, decent people who somehow got wrapped up in this type of life.

I'm not generally a fan of Griffith, but this role suits her well and her acting is top-notch. Woods is almost always exceptional, and his work here is no exception. The younger stars also perform quite well with this challenging, emotional material. And I thought the acting of the minor characters was excellent, suggesting the director had his act together on this one.

You have to acclimate to the language and level of tension early on or the movie will drive you nuts. But if you do, it begins to involve you deeply in the characters' situations and lives.

I'm going to buck the trend of comments here and say I thought this movie was actually too short. It often feels disjointed and obviously heavily edited. Anyone not intimately familiar with news during the period will require several viewings to make sense of what is presented here.

I am confused by the direction of the picture because it leaves me wondering what it is aiming for. Is it simply trying to turn history into cinema and stir up some controversy, similar to what was done with "JFK?" Or is it trying to tell a great American tragedy--the tale of a man whose achievement of power caused his downfall due to his underlying psychological makeup being incompatible with handling such power?

If the latter was the true aim, much was left out. There was not enough explanation of how his childhood environment led to his paranoia and intense need to be loved by all. Much of the conflicts leading up to and during his presidency were also not included here. I would have preferred including another hour of material to explore Nixon's personality a bit more.

I suspect that, due to Nixon's private nature, much more was not known that could be included in the script, and the producers probably already felt over-extended on their poetic license in regards to rewriting history.

An example of some good material that was edited out is included following the VHS (and I assume, DVD) version, so be sure to stick around after the credits.

Typical Stone fare, similar in style to JFK, this is definitely worth watching, but left me feeling it could have been more.