Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

While channel surfing I noticed AMC advertising Jaws. I wasn't interested but I had the passing thought "whatever happened to Dreyfuss?". I hadn't heard of him in decades. I went to IMBD and was amazed at what I found. Apparently he's been in half the crappy movies of the last 20 yrs and a few crappy TV offerings as well. I vaguely remember seeing the Krippendorfs advertised on tv because there was someone I liked in it. How is this possible? Dreyfuss has always been a ham. How can he keep getting jobs once the spell was broken? Does he have blackmail material on half of Hollywood? And I thought why has the term ham actor disappeared? True you don't often see Dreyfuss magnitude overacting anymore but still? Then It came to me. It's all part of the same conspiracy. The term ham actor had to be eliminated because of its obvious application to Dreyfuss. It's all part of the same conspiracy to keep Dreyfuss afloat because well maybe he's Putin's spy. Hey I can't be expected to know all the details. Something as strange as this could involve space aliens.

When former dancer Paula McFadden comes home from a shopping spree with her ten year old daughter Lucy, she finds a Dear Jane letter from her boyfriend Tony. They both had been looking forward to accompanying Tony to California while he films a movie. It seems he's taken a film role in Italy instead and left her high and dry. This is the beginning of her problems. Later that night, she and Lucy are awakened by someone at the door. She opens it to see a soaking wet Elliot Garfield, starving actor. He claims he has sublet the apartment from Tony for three months for $600 and wants to move in that night since he has no place to stay. After telling him to take it up with her fictional police sergeant husband, Paula slams the door in his face and goes back to bed. He calls her a few minutes later from the phone booth down on the corner and tells her he knows she's lying. He convinces her to let him come up and talk over the situation. Paula agrees to let him stay, reasoning that he has a key to the place and she would have to stand guard to keep him from coming in. She begins listing rules for living in the apartment and he responds that he's paying the rent and he will make the rules. Thus begins an unlikely and amusing love story. If you're looking for nude love scenes and bawdy humor, look elsewhere. This is a sweet, funny and smart romantic comedy about two people making the best of a difficult situation and learning to trust again.

I can't help but channel another favorite film of mine, "Star Wars" as I compare the outrageous but more comported and more intelligent film of yesteryear to today's offerings. A film made for adults, about adults, acting like adults, with adult problems, and solving them like adults might, and did before the market reshift of the 80s and 90s to a pure teenage audience (or audience with teenage taste)."The Goodbye Girl" is the kind of film I like to see and watch. It's a more comported film about people behaving like mature adults, without succumbing to the urge to be a child with raging hormones. But the theatre of the 70s was a different animal than today's teenage market model.Neil Simon's play, translated to the screen, is full of wit and verve. It is funny without condescending to body functions, nor explicit sex for the sake of shock (which has lost its shock altogether). We're seeing the courting of a couple, both of whom are fighting to hold onto their dreams and stay in the world they know and love without succumbing to defeat.Challenges are made and met, mostly from the couple that fight, vie and come to a state of détente and acceptance. Both Dreyfus and Mason are high energy and outrageous without being stupid and insulting (again, unlike so many of today's contemporary films). Watching this film I'm reminded of the adults that used to pervade society on all levels. I can also feel, see, sense and smell the set of the small apartment in New York; the art direction and lighting design are that good. Throw in some very competent actors, and you got yourself one great photplay waiting to be shown. I used to hate and bemoan the 70s, but this film reminded me that those years weren't so bad. If I had a critique of the film, it's Simon's writing style. It's full of more wit than I think most people can readily absorb. He's almost too funny at times. It's the kind of thing that's both his trademark and his bane. Referencing a non-sexual double entente and political ongoings of the era were zestful. It was an age when information was more filtered, though prevalent, yet delivered at a wiser pace to allow for mental digestion. But Simon bucks the trend of the time by delivering wit fast and furious. It was, and still is, considered great art and genius. Though at times it can be silly.An actor and a former hoofer with a daughter? Can it work? Well, you probably know the answer to that one, but it's the journey that's the actual joy. An old fashioned film for an old fashioned time, when technology, though present, didn't pigeon hole personality types into discreet demographics. In short, this film is made for most everyone.Ah, and I haven't given one of these in a while, there are a couple of marginally racy scenes. After all, it is a PG film, and I would urge the parent or would be parent who's interested in watching this with their children, to pre-screen it first, and then decide.Again, overall an inviting film with some funny, witty and tender scenes. It's also marginally cliché in a Neil Simon kind of way, but it's what you expect, and you love the man for it.A decent watch.

To watch "The Goodbye Girl" is to watch a special slice of filmography. Never has Richard Dreyfuss commanded his role so effortlessly, relaxed yet so perfect in the part.(Everyone was a jobbing actor at some time.) He really does steal the show, which considering the fine performances by his two female co-stars, is quite a feat! A simple storyline, worked superbly through simple observational craft, weaves a "will they, won't they, should they, can they" masterclass in the art of entertainment. It is a rarity to find a film in which you care, indeed yearn, to follow the cast on their journey. The Genre will not be to everyone's taste(duh!)but the sheer talent shown in front of, and behind of, the Camera is quite delightful.