The Goodbye Girl
1977 dramedy
Rating: 15/20
Plot: When her boyfriend abandons her and sublets the apartment she lives with her daughter, a dancer has to learn to live with a struggling actor.
With music and a general aesthetic like a television movie, combined with terrible dvd cover art, I almost said goodbye movie to The Goodbye Girl within the first five minutes. Only the promise of Paul Benedict kept me in. By the time he arrives, I was already enjoying the movie because of Richard Dreyfuss's manic performance as this struggling actor. On the surface, this Neil Simon screenplay seems very written; however, the two leads (and even the daughter if you want to include her) have a way of making it all seem more natural than it should. Of course, almost any movie with a precocious little kid is going to have some irritating moments, but once the daughter's friend Cynthia comes in for her big moment, probably because she's the director's daughter or something, she makes Quinn Cummings look like Meryl Streep. Dana Laurita is Cynthia, and she was in another movie from 1977 that I'm supposed to watch--Demon Seed. I can't wait. I hope a demon gets her early in the proceedings.
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