Bye Bye Love

Directed by Sam Weisman, Bye Bye Love follows three men (Matthew Modine’s Dave, Randy Quaid’s Vic, and Paul Reiser’s Donny) as they attempt to adjust to their post-divorce lives. Filmmaker Weisman, working from Gary David Goldberg and Brad Hall’s screenplay, delivers a compulsively watchable comedy that benefits from its roster of affable players, as the movie’s personable stars offer up engaging, charismatic work that’s echoed in the equally strong periphery efforts of their various costars. (Amy Brenneman, Rob Reiner, and Maria Pitillo are obvious standouts within the stacked supporting cast.) It is, as such, easy enough to overlook Weisman’s recurring reliance on sitcom-level conventions and bits of humor, and it’s worth noting, certainly, that Weisman generally does a terrific job of mining genuine laughs out of somewhat clichéd scenarios. (This is particularly true of Vic’s disastrous blind date with Janeane Garofalo’s impossibly difficult Lucille.) There’s little doubt, as well, that Bye Bye Love receives plenty of mileage out of its periodic emphasis on surprisingly effective (and affecting) bits of drama, with this particularly true of the heartwarming friendship that forms between a slick teenager (Johnny Whitworth’s Max) and a grieving widower (Ed Flanders’ Walter). By the time the tremendously satisfying closing stretch rolls around, Bye Bye Love has cemented its place as an endearing, entertaining piece of work that fares better than its reputation might’ve indicated.

*** out of ****