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The Goodbye Girl

The Goodbye Girl

List Price: $19.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful humanity is more than just skin deep!
Review: This movie has been always my all-time favorite, since my first view in 1982. I like the way that two seemingly unmatched couple develops into tear-sharing romance, the one we, as ordinary people, can aspire for. To be frank with you guys, I do not think both Richard and Marsha are physically attractive, but this fact did not make the movie less beautifuly filmed, for we all know that, the stars shining above Hollywood are just fantasy and vanity. The Goodbye Girl is actually a reflection of our ordinary life!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The way love is and the way it should be all in one.
Review: This movie leaves me wanting nothing. Through the fulfillment the characters receive I am left satisfied. Often in movies there is a sense that the two lovers have ended up in each other arms simply because they are "supposed to. True love is not earned, but these two work against and ultimately towards the other. This movie showcases the reality of love's impartiality. Love knows better than we do where our hearts belong. Marsha Mason is believable in her apprehension and Richard Dreyfus didn't win the Oscar that year...it won him. He proved himself worthy of any award possible with this film. Heartache meets humor, caution is tossed into conceit....and the payoff is contentment for all involved...including the audience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Outstanding Movie!
Review: This was a fantastic movie. Richard Dreyfus played the lead role of an aspiring actor. Marsha Mason is a fantastic leading lady in this movie. The actor(dreyfus) comes home and discovers a woman(Mason) and her daughter are mistakenly living in his apartment. He allows them to stay and a romance develops.This
movie would definitely be classified as feel good.After watching this movie I truly understand why Dreyfus won the best actor
Academy Award. Buy this and watch it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Absolutely best romantic comedy. Ever.
Review: When I started watching the movie I didn't know it was actually a romantic comedy, or I'd have switched the channel; I'm kinda wary of that genre, for many reasons. In any case, I left it on, and now, all I can say is that this movie is definitely going to be in my collection! Everything, absolutely everything was so good about this movie: the acting, the plot, the dialogue; there are few things I love best than to watch two witty people fighting; I even sort of expected to keep doing it until the end of the movie, but the way they end up falling for each other compensates for that, it was all very sweet and charming, without being saccharine, and the characters were something else, specially Lucy, the 10 year old girl with a 26 year old mind; and even if it had been just your run-of-the-mill romantic comedy I'd have watched it anyway only to see the part when Dreyfuss' character plays a very effeminate Richard III onstage and then comes home drunk, it was so hysterical. This movie alone puts to shame the host of awful, corny, boring productions Hollywood chokes us with - not that it needs any help with that. I wish I could have given this movie ten stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love means never having to say goodbye...
Review: With the current remake of Neil Simon's 'The Goodbye Girl' showing on television at the moment, it reminded me of this original film production, one of the better films from the 1970s, and one of the better films to derive from a Broadway play to keep much of the same character as the play. This film won numerous awards: Best Actor Oscar/Best Actor Golden Globe/Best Actor BAFTA for Richard Dreyfus; Best Picture Golden Globe; Best Actress Golden Globe/Best Actress Oscar Nomination for Marsha Mason; Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination for Quinn Cummings; Best Writing Oscar Nomination for Neil Simon, and the list goes on...

Neil Simon's play is dialogue driven rather than action-driven; this sometimes means the kiss of death for film, but in this production, it works beautifully. Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason (married to Neil Simon at the time) make a lively, comfortably uncomfortable duo as the new-to-New-York actor Elliot Garfield and the down-on-her-luck 'Goodbye Girl' Paula McFadden. Garfield shows up the night McFadden was dumped by her actor-boyfriend (not the first time this has happened, we soon discover); Garfield has been given the lease to the apartment that McFadden occupies with her daughter Lucy (admirably played by Quinn Cummings) -- much of the 'action' of the film takes place within the confines of this apartment (the primary set for the stage play) -- the relationship as Garfield and McFadden negotiate an unsettled truce which eventually becomes a friendship and then finally a love affair, with Lucy providing colour commentary all along the way.

Garfield is booked to play Richard III in the worst of all possible interpretations of the play; it closes in short order with atrocious reviews. McFadden tries to resurrect her dancing career, realising that she has passed the realistic age for most Broadway productions (certainly at that time). When Garfield gets the offer of a lifetime, he too plans to leave town, setting McFadden up for failure with a relationship once again, but at least she still has the apartment, right?

The dialogue is comedic and realistic at the same time -- the rapid-fire banter is classic Simon stage or screen; the impossible situations that cause characters to be constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown until small miracles creep in to keep life sane are also far more true to life than most people feel comfortable admitting. Herbert Ross is to be commended with his direction here, in that he made the film a great film while retaining the crucial aspects of the great play.

Everyone should see this film, a romantic comedy/drama with a serious edge and ironic undertow.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "A witty movie that reinvents social and living romanticism"
Review: Written by famous playwright Neil Simon, "The Goodbye Girl", gave Richard Dreyfuss his Academy Award. This movie is witty, sharp, smart, funny, and very romantic in an unconventional movie way. The premise of the movie forces Mason and Dreyfuss to share an apartment together that had been promised to the both of them. Her worst fear of men becomes true of his character. He is an actor. To find the meaning of the play, one has to look no further than a title. The goodbye girl learns she must put her fear of men leaving her behind her. Her trust in Dreyfuss does not go unrequited, and soon enough their constant pulling away from each other draws them the closest. This movie is the best little known secret to generations who came after it. Neil Simon's writing is timeless and beautiful. The performances are strong and intresting to watch. Look for the little girl who plays Mason's daughter, she's great. Mason and Dreyfuss are delightful together, looking at them forces one to think they paved the comedic partnership for Hanks and Ryan. The sets and locations are wonderful and give great appeal to a wonderful movie. A movie that lifts the human spirit and gives hope to those hopeless romantics.


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