The Goodbye Girl

The Goodbye Girl (1977) is an American romantic comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Herbert Ross from Neil Simon's original screenplay. Richard Dreyfuss took home the Academy Award for Best Actor; Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Simon himself all earned nominations the same night.

Paula McFadden gets dumped and left with a problem: her ex sublet her New York apartment to an off-Broadway actor named Elliot Garfield before skipping town. Elliot has his lease. Paula and her ten-year-old daughter Lucy have nowhere to go. The two adults share the space under protest — until, gradually, they don't mind so much. Simon wrote this partly as a showcase for Mason, who was his wife at the time, but Dreyfuss ran with it and made Elliot his own. The film runs on talk: every exchange is a sparring match, and the warmth sneaks in through the cracks. Stream The Goodbye Girl online on iFILM.