‘Goodbye Lover’ A Dark Delight

The songs from “The Sounds of Music” pop up all over the place in “Goodbye Lover,” but these hills are alive with the sound of bickering, animalistic sex and cold-blooded murder.

The darkest of comedies, “Goodbye Lover” has the sleek, cool elegance of marble, but it’s a lot more fun, with humor that comes from the gulf between how its characters behave and how real people behave. When these folks get mad, they don’t yell or throw things or take a time out; they kill each other. For them, morality simply isn’t an issue (one killer, righteously indignant that the spoils of his efforts are going to someone else, complains, “We did all the work. She gets all the money. It’s immoral!”). This is a movie in which Ellen DeGeneres plays a crank who tells a sobbing woman, “Cut the crap, honey. You’re wasting good mascara.” And DeGeneres is the nicest person in the film.

Plot-wise, it’s your standard film-noir situation. Patricia Arquette, dropping her waifish act to play a brazen, vicious minx, is married to Dermot Mulroney, but she’s having an affair with Don Johnson, who’s also flinging around with Mary Louise Parker. Things get really complicated when someone dies and there’s a lot of money involved and everyone wants it.

That stuff is pretty fun, in a sub-“Double Indemnity” kind of way, but the real joy of “Goodbye Lover” is watching the smart, zippy DeGeneres at work in a role that lets her cut loose. As the cop investigating the murder, she is the fulcrum of “Goodbye Lover’s” special brand of mean, sarcastic humor, especially in her scenes with Arquette’s terrific baby-doll Hitler.

It wouldn’t be funny if you were the victim of it, but, on-screen, it’s a riot. The “Sound of Music’-hating DeGeneres belittles suspects, trashes those who are less fortunate than her and zeroes in on human weaknesses with her diamond-edged wit. And these, baby, are a few of my favorite things. “Goodbye Lover” Location: Newport Credits: Directed by Roland Joffe, starring Patricia Arquette, Ellen DeGeneres Running time: 1:40 Rating: R