Bye Bye Love

I'm SHOCKED at the number of comments claiming this to be a "great," "best," "touching," "poignant," "believable" movie or the like. If you treasure shallow, emotionally cheapened drama laced in mostly banal humor then this may be in your treasure chest.

Granted, 'Bye, Bye, Love' is harmless entertainment with several anecdotal family or relationship moments strewn throughout. But let's keep it in perspective, folks. It's not garbage, but this is no 'Parenthood' or 'Author, Author' either.

This movie may hit home only if you view life from the perspective of a pampered, 14 year-old middle to upper-middle class teenager who learned about life from TV. It is chock full of one-dimensional caricatures of married life, divorce and parenthood. It rarely mimics real life unless you've lived your adult life at the maturity level of teenage relationships and priorities.

Grab your wife or girlfriend, even the kids (it's pretty safe), maybe some snacks and sit together for a couple hours of diluted, Reader's Digest-style family entertainment. Expect nothing more.

I must agree with others that the scenes involving the characters of Janeane Garofalo and Randy Quaid are priceless, standout comedy treasures, but wasted in a film about adults acting like children acting like adults.

I am a single dad and I enjoyed this movie a lot! I laughed and I cried. I loved the bad date scene with Randy Quaid and Jeanne Garafalo. She played the bad date to perfection. The movie was not perfect but it was a commendable attempt to bring some humor to a subject which seems far from humurous when you are going thru it. Very entertaining!

Recently divorced pals Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid and Paul Reiser tackle new relationships, their ex-wives and their disgruntled children in this strange little film that is never sure where it wants to go with the audience. The cast is very likeable. Rob Reiner does some excellent work as a radio talk show therapist who is despised by the key players. However comedy comes and goes and the drama feels forced on too many occasions. On a sad note, excellent character-actor Ed Flanders committed suicide shortly after completing this film. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

This is a very enjoyable little movie and after seven years and numerous viewings, I still watch it every time it's on TV. Of all the movies I've seen dealing with divorce and broken homes this one comes the closest to portraying what it was like (at least for me and my family). Best of all, it's not a depressing downer of a movie. It's fun to watch and emotional at the same time. The most effective part of the film for me was the relationship between Paul Reiser and his daughter since it reminded me so much of my dad and sister. All of the actors are extremely well chosen (minus the very bland Mathew Modine). It handles the topic of divorce responsibly and doesn't load on the melodramatics. For anyone who's gone through a divorce and wondered "Now what?", or a child of divorce... you should get a lot of this movie. I really, really liked it.

Life is not easy for three divorced fathers who meet every weekend at a fast food diner to collect their kids from their exes in this mix of comedy and drama starring Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid and Paul Reiser. Each provides a heartfelt performance and Rob Reiner is also solid as a 'radio shrink' whose intermittent broadcasts seem to taunt the trio as he laments the state of marriage today and constantly sides with the wives when discussing divorce. For all the angst that the film builds up - suggesting that fathers always lose out in the divorce process - the comedy treatment dulls any axe that the film has to grind. Janeane Garofalo has the funniest scene of the film as an awful first date whose rampant feminism amusingly gets in the way of all conversation (and dining), however, her scenes are far removed from the divorce woes at the heart of the film. The film indeed works best when it is not trying to be funny with a memorable scene early on in which one father gets very annoyed at his ex-wife spending her alimony payments on her car rather than the kids. Another great scene has one of the men staring out of the window at his ex-wife's lazy new lover, sunbathing with sunglasses on, moping around and doing nothing. The sense of indignation in this segment is quite heartfelt ("how could she prefer him to me?") without the need for a single word to be uttered. As mentioned though, the movie is mostly comedy and never an especially engaging one at that. The film's heart is certainly in the right place, but a slight change of tone could have done wonders here.