The Lonely Guy

The Lonely Guy (1984) is a comedy you can watch online on iFILM, built around one perfectly deadpan Steve Martin. He plays Larry Hubbard, a man who writes verses for greeting cards and walks in one afternoon to find his girlfriend sharing the bed with somebody else. From that moment on, solitude becomes his full-time occupation.

Director Arthur Hiller mines the gloom for laughs. Larry pours every lonely thought onto the page, and the resulting book turns into a runaway bestseller — money and fame arrive, yet the lovely Iris still barely registers him. Charles Grodin shows up as a fellow castaway from the social world, and the two of them moping together is the film's quiet engine. The humor is gentle and a little melancholy, exactly the register early-eighties Martin did best. Good company for an evening when you'd rather laugh at your own bad luck. Stream The Lonely Guy (1984) online on iFILM.