It focuses on Gibson's personal life from 1988 to 1991, particularly his tumultuous relationships with April Ward, Gianna Santone and Cindy Carpenter.

In a flashback, Gibson wins an AFI Award for his editing work on Flirting and walks on stage carrying a camera.

Ward writes a series of angry letters and makes emotional phone calls to Gibson, upsetting Santone.

As the Gulf War unfolds on TV, Gibson compares Ward to a Scud missile: "She came out of the heavens from nowhere, she was not very accurate, but she was, morale-wise, psychologically devastating."

While Santone works as a radio newsreader at the ABC, Gibson maintains a full-time career in film editing.

Gibson buys Santone a $4,000 engagement ring, but then a woman he identifies only as "Katarina the Black Queen" convinces her not to marry him.

They visit the Queen Victoria Building as a potential venue and fill out paperwork at the Births Deaths and Marriages NSW office.

In a diary entry to camera, Gibson discusses physically grabbing and confronting her on the streets of Kings Cross as she attempted to run away and withdraw money from an ATM.

Gibson edited various Australian films and TV productions since the 1970s, including The Dirtwater Dynasty, Flirting and Daydream Believer.

"I was always shoving the camera into people's faces at parties, family occasions, at work, everywhere I went", he later told The Toronto Star.

"[3] Gibson met George Miller while sitting in on the editing process for Mad Max and pitched various ideas to him over the years, including a screenplay entitled Carpark Freaks.

[6] Despite the real-life nature of the film, Gibson insisted it was not a documentary and withdrew it from the AFI Awards when they refused to classify it otherwise.

"[10] Adrian Martin described the film in The Age as a "witless farrago" that is "simply hideous... simultaneously banal and spectacular, not to mention excruciatingly painful to watch."

He was also shocked by the fact the Video Fool for Love press kit identified Gibson as "the first (filmmaker) to put himself between the camera and his subject" as he felt similar concepts had been done many times before to greater effect, giving examples such as Corinne Cantrill's In This Life's Body and Ross McElwee's Sherman's March.

"[12] Margaret Allen in the Green Left Weekly called the film "an intimate and sometimes sexually explicit home movie", adding that "the most unsettling aspect... is that every 10 minutes or so, there is the shock realisation that what you are witnessing actually happened.

"[13] In Canada, The Hamilton Spectator called the film "hilarious and irritatingly honest, an exploration of love gone wrong in the 90s that unabashedly documents the politics of romance.

"[14] Antonia Zerbisias in The Toronto Star wondered whether or not Gibson and his subjects were "playing to the lens", but concluded: "It doesn't matter.

"[17] In a review of Channel Nine's reality TV series Weddings, Sacha Molitorisz saw Video Fool for Love as part of a legacy of Australian "warts and all" documentaries including Sylvania Waters and RPA.