Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

The Goodbye Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

The Very Long Goodbye

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 14, 2016

The 1970s are often cited as a golden age of cinematic innovation, but not everyone wanted to try something new. Playwright Neil Simon kept plugging away at the trade he learned writing for TV, crafting comedies rooted in character and structured in the traditional style of a well-made play. The Odd Couple (1968) reflects a template to which Simon returned again and again, establishing a basic premise at the outset—two divorced men of opposite temperaments share an apartment—with everything else playing out logically from that starting point. In Simon's best plays, the gun in the first act always goes off in the third, but Simon thoroughly explores the weapon before it discharges, showing it being cleaned, loaded, cocked and brandished. By the end of the story, every bullet has been fired, and more often than not they hit their target.

"The Odd Couple" could have been the subtitle of 1977's The Goodbye Girl, one of the best scripts that Simon wrote for then-wife Marsha Mason. Although Goodbye Girl was written directly for the screen, it bears the hallmarks of Simon's stage work, with an emphasis on character and dialogue and a limited number of sets and locations. (Whenever Simon translated his plays to the screen, he made little effort to "open out" the action.) Originally conceived as the story of a struggling actor whose sudden success turns his life upside down, Goodbye Girl was substantially rewritten after an unsuccessful attempt to film it under Mike Nichols' direction with Robert De Niro in the lead. Simon rewrote the script as a romantic comedy about a feuding couple who eventually fall in love, but he retained the struggling actor element as a fertile source of comic routines. Under the guidance of Simon's favorite director, Herb Ross (The Sunshine Boys), the role became a showcase for Richard Dreyfuss, who tore into the part with an enthusiasm that earned him a shelf of awards, including the Oscar for Best Actor.

The Goodbye Girl shocked everyone by grossing over $100 million (a huge number in 1977) and achieving the year's fourth highest box office (after Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit and Close Encounters). That year's Best Picture Oscar may have gone to Annie Hall's bittersweet dissection of a failed relationship, but it was Simon's affectionate account of mismatched lovers that won viewers' hearts. The film has retained a devoted following, who can enjoy it anew in this superior Blu-ray presentation from the Warner Archive Collection.

The "Goodbye Girl" of the title is Paula McFadden (Mason), a former Broadway chorus dancer with a weakness for handsome but shallow actors, one of whom she married and divorced, leaving her with a precocious daughter, Lucy (Quinn Cummings). Currently she's been living with another leading man in his Upper West Side apartment, but he dumps her in the film's opening (by letter; he never appears). The self-centered cad also sublets the apartment out from under Paula and Lucy, leaving them both penniless and potentially homeless. As Paula resumes dance classes and returns to the cattle-call auditions immortalized in A Chorus Line and All That Jazz, she also finds herself warring for possession of the apartment with the unfortunate sucker to whom her ex-boyfriend sublet the place, collecting the rent in advance while conveniently neglecting to disclose that the rooms are still occupied.

The hapless subtenant is Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss), a Chicago actor who has come to New York for what he hopes will be a big break off-Broadway, but Elliot immediately confronts several major obstacles. The first and most obvious is that the entrance to his apartment is blocked by a desperate mom who stubbornly refuses to vacate (or, initially, even open the door). The second is that Elliot has been hired by a director named Mark (the late Paul Benedict) to play the lead in a version of Shakespeare's Richard III that so radically departs from the Bard's text that you can see the disbelief in the face of every cast member. According to Mark, Shakespeare's Machiavellian hunchback was secretly gay (his attraction to Lady Anne notwithstanding), and the play is rife with clues and subtext pointing to the closeted homosexuality of the character best known for proclaiming "My kingdom for a horse!" As Elliot's director insists that he deliver Richard's famous speeches in an exaggeratedly campy style, Elliot grows increasingly panicked and despondent, certain that the role will end his career. (It doesn't.)

Paula and Elliot quickly reach a tense compromise to share the apartment, but their problems are far from over, as they proceed to argue endlessly over the details of their living arrangements. Like all good comedy writers, Simon finds humor and conflict in such everyday minutia as panties hanging on a shower rod or shopping for groceries, and he even uses a purse-snatching (an all-too-common event in Seventies New York) as an opportunity for sparring between his two main characters. He also endows Elliot with a series of quirks worthy of Felix Ungar, all the better to send Paula into howls of protest. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Lucy stands quietly aside, observing the fireworks between the adults and commenting with the quizzical detachment of a Greek chorus.

It is Elliot who first decides that he wants more from the relationship than involuntary cohabitation, initiating a charm offensive against both mother and daughter with dogged commitment, despite Paula's determination never to date another actor. Horse-drawn carriage rides, rooftop candlelit dinners and random gestures of chivalry achieve a tentative rapport, but the vagaries of show business remain a challenge for the hesitant couple right until the end.

Dreyfuss would later say that he would have been happy to play Elliot for the rest of his career, which dovetails with Mason's observation that her co-star got to have all the fun while she struggled, complained and made dinner. Elliot is unquestionably the showier role, whether he is uncomfortably cavorting as gay Richard, drunkenly hanging out a window after the critics savage his performance, attempting to win over Paula or scampering up and down a fire escape arguing with her. But Mason's contribution shouldn't be overlooked, because it took both players to achieve the chemistry that made The Goodbye Girl a hit and keeps it watchable today. Like Oscar and Felix, they clearly belong together, even when they can't stand each other.

The Goodbye Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Goodbye Girl was shot by David M. Walsh, who photographed numerous films scripted by Simon, including The Sunshine Boys and Murder by Death. The film was previously transferred in standard definition for DVD; an HD master was created for broadcast some years ago, but upon review it was determined to be inadequate for Blu-ray. Accordingly, the Warner Archive Collection commissioned a new transfer, which was performed (at 2K) by Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility using a recently manufactured interpositive. Unlike the earlier broadcast master, the new scan received extensive color correction and cleanup, and the resulting 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray sports a smooth and film-like image that reveals a wealth of fine detail in the film's New York locations (and soundstage re-creations of interiors). The lighting and production design capture the city's grungy texture during this economically depressed era, which provides an appropriate background to a story about people who are barely scraping by. The apartment that Paula and Elliot grudgingly share looks suitably worn and cramped, even after Paula redecorates. The palette is generally realistic, with the exception of the ill-fated Shakespeare production, which is awash in stylized lighting (mostly purple). The image retains the soft texture typical of Seventies film stocks, but the grain pattern is natural and finely resolved. As per its usual practice, WAC has mastered The Goodbye Girl at a high average bitrate of 34.99 Mbps.

The Goodbye Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Goodbye Girl's mono soundtrack has been transferred from the original magnetic master and encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. The track shows its age in its limited dynamic range, and some of the post-dubbing is less than perfect, but these are limitations of the source. The Blu-ray conveys the dialogue-driven sound mix as accurately as possible, including such key effects as the torrential downpour in which Elliot arrives at the apartment. The understated score is by Dave Grusin, whose lengthy résumé includes another film about a struggling actor, Tootsie, which, ironically, starred Dustin Hoffman, the original inspiration for the character of Elliot.

The Goodbye Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole extra is the film's trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:45), which has been remastered in 1080p. Warner's 2000 DVD of The Goodbye Girl was similarly bare.

The Goodbye Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The style and locale of The Goodbye Girl may have dated, but its core romance remains as fresh as when it first appeared, and the theatrical scene it satirizes (and which Simon knew all too well) remains as unpredictably goofy as ever. WAC has given the film a Blu-ray treatment that should satisfy existing fans and allow new viewers a chance to discover one of Simon's best. Highly recommended.