Mariti imperfetti

A look at modern day divorced American single fathers and their attachment to McDonalds! It has some sincere and funny moments that make it worth the while but as always, when Hollywood gets to close to the truth, it turns to a TV soap style of resolution.

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!

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 have seen this movie twice now and I have to post my opinions as to why this movie is crap in terms of writing, directing, and editing... possibly even casting.

"Bye Bye, Love" stars the TV star, Paul Reiser, as a guy who divorced his wife for reasons we never really know... and he is still in love with her. Matthew Modine plays an always smiling (never acting) "charmer." Randy Quaid plays another odd character that never is well developed because the movie has too many plots and characters to really focus on anyone in particular.

One thing that sickens me about this movie is how much blatant advertising is done within it. Off the top of my head, I remember Kettle Chips, Minute Maid, and last and certainly not least, McDonald's. I bet MickeyD's patroned the entire movie, to show that divorcees should meet there every weekend to trade their kids, seeing as the divorce rate in America is over 50% of all married couples. What a demographic to hit for! I never heard of people meeting at fast food restaurants to exchange their kids for the weekend before this.

Next thing, Eliza Dushku hitting on the guy who works at McDonalds? How realistic is that? Yes, I realize all of you Buffy fans that she is "Faith" but it doesn't make up for the fact that her character was undeveloped and weak. For example, when she gets drunk and screams at her father and says all of that typical "i broke up the marriage" crap... where did any of that come from? We are given no clues as to why she's angry except for Reiser's "that age between 13 and 36" quote.

The chronology in this movie was hard to follow, too, because most of the scenes played independent to the others, while going back and forth between the 40 stories going on. The music montages added to the story, making it even worse than it already was. The lovely "wrap-up" at the end really made the story feel like it ended at a very awkward place. The climax was very... semi-climatic. Quaid's character is a rollercoaster of uncertainty. He's not a dynamic character... he's a schiz. So is his lovely date, Garafolo.

This movie doesn't give insight as to what men are going through after a divorce... it gives what women want men to be like. I would only recommend this movie to people who want to be brainwashed by Dr. Laura-esque psychology and the mesmers at McDonalds.

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.