The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Directed by Herbert Ross. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, Paul Benedict, Barbara Rhoades. [PG]

Single mom Mason, recently dumped and deserted, and her young daughter (Cummings) are forced to share a subletted apartment with an aspiring off-Broadway actor (Dreyfuss); arguments, romantic entanglements, purse snatchings, naked guitar playing, and Shakespeare desecrations ensue. Scripted by Neil Simon—an original instead of an adaptation of one of his plays—with his usual grab bag of obvious observations, snappy one-liners, and neuroses; it’s formula stuff through and through, but warm and agreeable most of the time (even occasionally winning). Dreyfuss picked up an Academy Award for his work here (the youngest to ever win Best Actor until he was “topped” by Adrian Brody for The Pianist twenty-five years later), and he’s certainly in fine form—his career suicide performance of Richard III as a flamboyant homosexual gets the biggest laugh. Mason is exhausting but all-too-believable as a woman afraid to open her heart again; Cummings is above-average as far as precocious child performances go. Everything’s in place for a resonant and meaningful conclusion…but Simon goes a step too far and botches the whole thing for the sake of the happy-feelies. Nicol Williamson has a tiny role as a film director.

68/100