Film Sentimental Fluff Plus

The Goodbye Girl

directed by Herbert Ross Regent

"It was like falling off a log" says Richard Dreyfuss. "The Goodbye Girl is the type of movie I'd seen as a kid and said I want to be in that kind of picture when I get to be an actor."

Well now he is an actor, and he has an Oscar to prove it. Emerging in the early '70s, Dreyfuss has had a number of interesting film roles: he looked ridiculously young in American Graffiti; he gagged at severed limbs in Jaws; and in Close Encounters of the Third Kind he played with his potato salad and tried to look suitably awestruck.

Dreyfuss shines throughout The Goodbye Girl in what is by far his most engaging characterisation. Neil Simon wrote the script specifically for Dreyfuss and his own wife, Marsha Mason. It is an actor's film and both the stars make the most of it. The dialogue is really so good that it would raise a laugh even if delivered by a pair of stuttering amputees; here the combination of talents makes the film almost embarassingly successful.

The plot, as is usual with Simon's stories, is insubstantial but quite irresistable. Dreyfuss, as Elliot Garfield, is a quirky egocentric actor, newly arrived in New York to play the lead in an off-Broadway production of Richard III. Mason plays Paula, a dancer two years out of training, and Quinn Cummings is her ten year old daughter Lucy. They have just been deserted by. Paula's lover left for Bertollucci and Italy, but not before he has sneakily sublet their apartment to Dreyfuss. On a wet New York night Dreyfuss finds himself locked out of his new apartment by the pair who, with nowhere to go, refuse to leave. Elliot eventually comes to a strained agreement with Paula and despite their initial incompatibility, the two find themselves becoming attracted to one another. Paula has twice been jilted by actors and is deadly scared of falling in love with yet another one. Elliot eventually succeeds in winning her over, however, in what has to be one of the screen's funniest and most unusual seduction scenes.

Cummings, the precocious Lucy, offers welcome relief from the tiresome succession of well scrubbed brats featured on American TV and films (hands up all those who think the "Brady Bunch" sucks). She even gets to say some dirty words which, in the days of Lolita would have condemned this film to an R 21 certificate.

In addition to looking at Elliot and Paula's relationship, The Goodbye Girl pokes some fun at New York's theatre scene. Elliot Garfield's high hopes for his Richard III are ruined by an ambitious director who sets about modifying Shakespeare's play somewhat. Elliot is forced to play Richard as an effiminate, "Renaissance fruitfly". His pleas with the director to let him retain his hump and limp are particularly moving.

On another level the film offers a rather chilling view of the city. Woody Allen's Annie Hall took an affectionate look at New York. In The Goodbye Girl director Herbert Ross is seemingly less enthusiastic. The characters lead secure comfortable lives - behind triple locked doors. Streets are littered with garbage. In one scene Paula is mugged in broad daylight on a busy street. Greys and browns predominate; we never see any grass throughout the whole movie.

It really is more than just sentimental fluff. Skip John Travolta - he can afford it. Go and see 'The Goodbye Girl' instead.

Costa Botes.