LYCOS RETRIEVER 
The Goodbye Girl: Neil Simon
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More than just superfluous, TNT's The Goodbye Girl is one of those misbegotten remakes that make you rethink the original. This is a film, after all, that garnered an Oscar for Richard Dreyfuss and a nomination for Marsha Mason (as well as a best-picture nomination) — and all you can think while watching Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton slog through Neil Simon's script is "how did that happen?" Never mind doing it twice; who thought this script was worth doing once?
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For instance, in act two of The Goodbye Girl the young daughter, Lucy, goes from having a crush on Elliot in one scene to totally disliking him in the flash of a light cue. Elliot is an egotistic career minded actor in one scene, and then in a flash he is in love with his enemy across the bedroom, proposing to her after a night of love. The book jumps and leaps to get the loose ends tied, but drops huge globs of character development along the way. There is ... the major problem of having a chorus that practically has nothing to do. A couple of minor characters that could have really added so much (such as the landlord and the theatre director) are present, but get only a couple of Neil Simon one liners and then they exit off.
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Neil Simon wrote The Goodbye Girl (the movie) as a Valentine gift to his actress wife, Marsha Mason. Then Hamlisch and Zippel worked with him to turn his film script into a smash Broadway hit musical. This gifted trio of contemporary theatre giants created a RARE thing these days, a delightfully funny and romantic musical theatre piece.
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THE GOODBYE GIRL is still so fresh, funny and quietly romantic that it plays like it was made yesterday rather than almost 25 years ago. It features Richard Dreyfuss' best comedy performance, and one of the warmest by Marsha Mason. It's one of the best movies of director Herbert Ross, really topped only by THE ODD COUPLE... by Simon, of course.
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Though Richard Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his performance in the original film version of THE GOODBYE GIRL (1977), it was never top-drawer Neil Simon — that’s why this made-for-TV retread is both forgivable and forgettable. read more
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Neil Simon