Title: Neil Simon’s The
Goodbye Girl
Stars: Patricia Heaton, Jeff
Daniels, Alan Cumming, Richard Benjamin and Hallie Kate Eisenberg
Writer: Neil Simon
Based on a Screenplay by: Neil
Simon
Director: Richard Benjamin
Producer: Richard Benjamin
Co-Executive Producer: Don
Safran
Executive Producers: Ron Ziskin,
Dave Collins, and Neil Simon
Running Time: 135 minutes with
commercials
Media: TNT Original Television
Motion Picture (NTSC VHS Screener)
World Premiere Weekend: Friday,
January 16, 2004, at 8pm (ET/PT), Saturday, January 17, 2004, at 8pm (ET/PT),
Sunday, January 18, 2004, at 8pm (ET/PT)
Network: Turner Network
Television (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)
TV Rating: TV-PG-DLS
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
I suppose it was bound to happen
sooner or later, but since I never saw the original feature film from the 1970s
it seemed new enough for me and featured a new teleplay by Neil Simon adapted
from his original screenplay. I am talking about the upcoming Three-Play World
Premiere Weekend presentation of “Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl” on TNT.
Former
Broadway dancer Paula McFadden (Heaton) and her daughter, Lucy (Hallie Kate
Eisenberg), return home to discover Paula's actor boyfriend has abandoned them.
What's worse, he has subleased their apartment to another actor, Elliot Garfield
(Daniels). This is shocking news to Paula, who thought the apartment had been
prepaid for the next several months. Finding no other solution, Paula and Elliot
decide to temporarily share the apartment, but the tension between the two
remains palpable as Elliot's habits of playing the guitar at night, sleeping in
the nude and meditating every morning begin to grate on Paula's nerves.
As Paula desperately
searches for a job, she finds only disappointment as she is told she is too old
or too out of practice to return to dancing at this stage in her life.
Meanwhile, Elliot rehearses for the title role in an off-off Broadway production
of Richard III, being directed by a wacky revisionist (Cumming) who
insists Elliot play Richard as a flamboyant gay man. Opening night proves to be
a disaster with both audience and critics, and the show closes after only one
performance. As Paula consoles the despondent actor, she begins developing
feelings for him, and he for her.
Just as sparks begin to fly
between the two, Lucy worries that she and her mother will once again be left in
the lurch. That worry is compounded when a film director (Benjamin) offers
Elliot a role in a movie being shot in Seattle, a role he gladly accepts. Paula
immediately assumes that this is the end of yet another relationship and that
she will once again be left as a "goodbye girl." But Elliot still has
one more romantic trick up his sleeve to win her trust and her love.
“Neil
Simon’s The Goodbye Girl” will be broadcast in a widescreen (1.85:1) aspect
ratio and features great performances in particular by Jeff Daniels and Patricia
Heaton though perhaps the real star is the snappy writing by Neil Simon that
appeared pretty relevant to me today as I imagine the original must have felt
with moviegoers in the late 1970s. Grammy Award-winning artists Hootie and the
Blowfish recorded a remake of David Gates’ 1977 hit single “Goodbye Girl”
to accompany the film. While the teleplay for the film still is quite witty,
there are few elements that just don’t translate as well as they might have
twenty plus years ago. In particular the ridiculous scene where Eliot is
supposed to me meditating feels more like a bad joke from reruns of “The Odd
Couple” TV series than anything that could possibly even be taken as a serious
joke for anyone in my generation. The 60s are long over Neil. What was once fad
is now a legitimate part of many people’s daily lives. To make fun of
meditation is almost as bad as making fun of someone’s religion and no one
likes their spiritual beliefs to be trampled on in jest onscreen no matter how
exotic it might seem.
That aside, “Neil Simon’s
The Goodbye Girl” is an entertaining love story that is well worth checking
out when it makes its Three-Play Weekend World Premiere on Friday, January 16,
2004, at 8pm (ET/PT), Saturday, January 17, 2004, at 8pm (ET/PT), and Sunday,
January 18, 2004, at 8pm (ET/PT). Encores are as follows:
(All
Times ET/PT)
Friday,
January 16, 2004, at 10:15pm
Saturday,
January 17, 2004, at 10:15pm
Sunday,
January 18, 2004, at 10:15pm
Saturday,
January 24, 2004, at 11:30pm
Saturday,
January 31, 2004, at 1:15pm
Sunday,
February 1, 2004, at 9:15am
© Copyright 2004 By Mark A.
Rivera
All Rights Reserved.