Movie-The Goodbye Girl

I know I have been watching some older movie lately, but that is one thing I love about Netflix...it is really easy to find movies, and they have a HUGE selection.

I had always heard good things about The Goodbye Girl, a 1977 movie based on a play by Neil Simon. And it was really good. It is the most basic of romantic comedies, a man and woman meet through circumstances not of their choosing, hate each other-then tolerate each-then love each other. But good, smart writing and dialogue and sharp acting keep it from being mundane.

Marsha Mason is a bitter woman just dumped by her boyfriend. Too make matters worse, he has sublet the apartment where they lived with her daughter without telling her. Enter Richard Dreyfuss, an actor who has moved to New York and thinks he has a great deal on an apartment. He doesn't know that it is occupied by an angry woman and her precocious daughter.

This movie is not groundbreaking at all. But it works the formula really well, and is just an old-fashioned love story. When that is done right, as it is here, it completely satisfies.