Goodbye Lover

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	96:55 minutes	Other Extras	Main Menu Audio
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Roland Joffe
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Patricia Arquette Dermot Mulroney Ellen DeGeneres Mary-Louise Parker Don Johnson
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	John Ottman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, but hardly worth waiting for

    I'm not sure whether Goodbye Lover was supposed to be funny in a darkly clever sort of way or whether it was just plain BAD. Either way, I found myself frequently checking the time remaining counter on my DVD player, which is always a bad sign.

    Sandra Dunmore (Patricia Arquette) is having a torrid affair with her brother-in-law, Ben (Don Johnson). Ben wants to break it off, and start a relationship with Peggy Blane (Mary-Louise Parker). Complicating this is the fact that Sandra's husband and Ben's brother, Jake (Dermot Mulroney) finds out about their affair. The nett result? One very dead Ben, in one of the fakest death scenes I have seen in a long time.

    Ben had an insurance policy on his life, a fact which makes the stereotypical cynical homicide detective, Rita Pompano (Ellen DeGeneres), suspicious. Her dullard partner, Rollins (Ray McKinnon) is quick to blame it all on Jake's drinking problem, but Rita knows better. A series of twists and turns ensues before what is really going on is revealed. To be honest, by about two-thirds of the way through the movie, I simply didn't care anymore about who was doing what to whom and why. Still, it all looked very stylish and very noir, and the final scene does make you wonder whether or not the entire movie with its impossible co-incidences and numerous stereotypes was simply a big black joke at Hollywood's expense.

    It really did look very stylish.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. The other side of the disc carries a Full Frame version of the movie. A lot of this movie is heavily reliant on scene composition and visual style, so the Full Frame composition of the flip side of this DVD loses much of the intended impact of the movie, making the widescreen version of the movie by far the preferred viewing choice.

    The transfer is mostly sharp and clear except for a few deliberately softly-focussed scenes. There appeared to be some minor edge enhancement used at times, which marred the image slightly. Shadow detail, as is to be expected in a noir-style production is immaculate, with lots of deep, clean shadows with subtle picture information contained therein. There was no low level noise to mar the image, although film grain occasionally appeared in the background of some images.

    The colours were generally crisp, clear and vibrant, without being oversaturated and without bleeding. The use of colour by this movie is quite striking, and the DVD renders this very well indeed.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen, but aliasing was mildly problematic for this transfer, with some moderate aliasing seen at times in the "usual suspects" such as venetian blinds. Film artefacts went unnoticed.
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/MPEG Artefacts
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue was pretty much totally clear and easy to understand except for that which occurred during the opening titles, which was a little hard to make out. An obviously looped piece of dialogue was inserted between 23:36 and 23:41, but other than this obviously out-of-sync piece of dialogue, no other audio sync problems were noted.

    The score by John Ottman was present almost continuously, providing a nicely event-driven background to the movie. The music was aggressively mixed into the surround channels, which markedly enhanced the overall envelopment of this soundtrack.

    The surround channels are frequently but subtly used. As previously mentioned, music dominates the surround channels, but there are also plenty of ambient effects that find their way into the rears. Having said that, this movie is fundamentally a dialogue-driven movie, so the surround activity is by no means as frenetic as you would expect from an action movie. Nonetheless, the overall surround presence is remarkably pleasing.

    The .1 channel was subtly used to support the music, but did little else, never calling attention to itself.
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Main Menu Audio

• Cast & Crew Biographies
• Production Notes
• Theatrical Trailer

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are almost no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
7th July 2000