Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss exudes lots of kooky, ego-fed charisma and has energy to spare in "The Goodbye Girl" but there's nothing here to keep his character together with Marsha Mason's--except a few plot contrivances. Mason plays a single mom trying to find work as a dancer on Broadway, Dreyfuss is a burgeoning stage actor who has been promised her apartment. They pick at each other until one night he kisses her and that seems to change nearly everything between them. Once their romance begins, almost every scene thereafter is a bummer. Mason harps on redoing her apartment ("Go be a movie star," she tells Dreyfuss, "I'll be here hanging up my wallpaper."). What is her irrational need to find a man and set up house? It's more important to her than finding work. Mason looks smashing in a pixie cut that accentuates her big gummy smile, but her character's insecure, moody behavior is enough to drive any reasonably sane man away. Thank goodness for daughter Quinn Cummings' smart mouth, Dreyfuss may never return. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Goodbye Girl
