Goodbye Lover

The death of "Goodbye Lover" obviously came in its editing. Because watching it, you do see that hidden within the numerous layers of ridiculous bile, there was at some point, an actually coherent plot. Not to fault editor Bill Steinkamp too terribly, because while the story may be choppy and often unexplained and lacking a central arc due to the cuts made, one gets the overwhelming impression that, with or without editing, this film *stinks*.

It doesn't know whether it wants to be funny, tense, smarmy, sexy, or devious. It is literally as if the writers drew slips of paper titled "things we like about movies" from a hat and put it into the script. Director Roland Joffé (who did The Killing Fields - what happened?!) does his best, I guess, but that is not enough. The cast tries hard enough that it's only fair to warrant that it isn't their fault. But, there's nothing that could have saved this movie short of never making it.