"Bye Bye Love" is saddled with sitcom roots, as producer/director Sam Weisman (who also gave us "D2: The Mighty Ducks") hails from the television series "Family Ties" and "Brooklyn Bridge," both of which were created by co-screenwriter Gary David Goldberg. Goldberg's collaborator here is Brad Hall ("Frasier," "Brooklyn Bridge").
So, it's easy to poke holes in this comic tale of three divorced weekend fathers (Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid, Paul Reiser), to carp that it skims the surface of social issues without ever digging deeply into them, simply because the film's creators were taught superficiality in their TV years.
But in truth, the main fault of "Bye Bye Love" is that it tries to do too much. There are just too many situation setups to adequately deal with all of them. But there are many moments that will ring true to anyone who has been through a divorce - especially when it comes to relationships between parents and children.
Reiser is quite amusing as Donny, who is still hung up on his ex (despite her having remarried), and Modine is effective as Dave, who can't seem to help himself when it comes to cheating on his current relationship. But Quaid, as the embittered, angry Vic, dominates the film and has some hilarious moments as he plots revenge on his ex and her young boyfriend, and ultimately challenges a talk-radio host (Rob Reiner) who has been pompously dispensing ill-advised advice for a marathon week-endlong discussion of divorce.
Quaid is almost knocked off the screen, however, by a hysterical natural-born scene-stealer, Janeane Garofalo, who shows up as his date-from-hell in the film's final third. (She accomplished a similar feat in last year's "Reality Bites.")
The meager plot has the trio using a local McDonald's as neutral ground for picking up and dropping off the kids, and the film covers one weekend of dates, crying on each other's shoulders, taking care of the children and trying to keep one troubled teenager from destroying her life.
Juggling these stories is obviously a chore for Weisman, who is better with the comic sequences, and he gets some big laughs. There is also some wry wisdom from veteran actor Ed Flanders, whose retired character gets a job at McDonald's. As enjoyable as he is, however, his subplot is extraneous and gets in the way of the film's narrative structure. (There are also times when the constant McDonald's references make this movie seem like a long commercial.)
But the relationships between the main characters are quite well-drawn, and the pop music sound-track is better here than most modern movies, offering comic counterpoint more often than intrusiveness.
A mixed bag, but generally an enjoyable one, "Bye Bye Love" is rated PG-13, primarily for Hollywood's favorite profanity being spoken once. There is also some other profanity, a couple of vulgarisms and some sexual foreplay (nothing explicit).