Review of Between Love & Goodbye

Let’s begin with how I discovered Between Love & Goodbye. Between Love & Goodbye was released in 2008 but I just saw it today. I saw the movie title on Logo TV so I clicked on the INFO button to see what the movie was about. The summary read:  “When two young men meet and fall in love at first sight, they hatch a scheme to keep one of them, a Frenchman, in the United States by way of marriage.” I saw that summary and thought that I would be in for a good love story so I dvr’d it. 

I decided to watch the movie today and I quickly discovered that the summary was incomplete. The movie was not about the scheme to keep the Frenchman in America. That scheme took place within the first fifteen minutes. The rest of the movie was a lesson in what happens when love goes bad.

The movie upset me. It exacerbated the shortcomings of both lovers (Kyle and Marcel) then it had the nerve to end in a way that pissed me off even more. It took me a few minutes to decompress and realize that it wasn’t a bad movie. Between Love & Goodbye aggravated me and irritated me but I kind of felt like that was the point. Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile oneself with the aftermath of love.

  

 The official movie description (on Amazon Instant Video) reads:

Kyle and Marcel are in love at first sight. Marcel, who is from France, marries his lesbian friend Sarah so he can stay in the US with Kyle. Enter Kyle’s sister, April, a former prostitute who needs a place to crash. Taking a quick disliking to Marcel, April methodically drips poison into their happiness. But where Marcel sees a conniving woman with a not-so-hidden agenda, Kyle only sees his sister in need. The perfect couple falls headlong into possessiveness, jealousy and rage; trapped in the tangled emotions found in that space between love and goodbye.

That summary is a much better description of the movie. Between Love & Goodbye is a painful look at what can happen to a seemingly good relationship. Kyle and Marcel each have their own issues and April only makes things worse. April wants Kyle for herself. As an outsider, it’s easy to see how April manipulates Kyle, but it’s also easy to see how Kyle is blinded by his bond with April and that he doesn’t see how toxic she is until it’s too late. 

I spent most of the movie pulling for Kyle and Marcel. I wanted Kyle to wake up and see how April was playing him and I wanted Marcel to find a way to be gentler with his tone. Somewhere along the lines, things changed. I reached a point where I thought their relationship was beyond repair. There are only so many nasty comments that any relationship can take and Kyle and Marcel quickly reached their limit and then repeatedly crossed the line. 

Between Love & Goodbye is the classic ‘nobody wins’ story. If you’re looking for happily ever after then don’t waste your time, but if you’re looking to watch a loving relationship fall to pieces before your eyes then this is the story for you.