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Film Perfection

Brilliant and touching

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I went back to see this one after years and years. How does it hold up? It is pretty good but it has a weak ending. So many classic parts that any person who has found themselves alone has experienced will recognize. My wife and I laughed out loud at the first half. We both dated as adults and have had the feeling that you will never find anyone that makes sense. People will try anything to find the "one". You can find the one, but you won't know until you find them. That doesn't make sense to someone who has not found the "one" but once you do you will be satisfied. By the end though we were not invested in the characters enough and started fading out. Worth the watch. Steve Martin is a genius.

(55%) For a comedy about abject loneliness, lost love, combined with a strong element of suicide, this is quite a bold interesting move, and largely it works. Martin is great, James Grodin provides a good share of the better laughs in fine support, the pacing is decent, and even if it's uneven from the very beginning it still worked out miles better than it could have given the quite dark premise as it never really allows itself to get too bleak or down hearted. The romantic main plot is as loopy as everything else in this almost cartoonish New York city setting, but a good heart keeps everything running and largely together.

"The Lonely Guy" isn't as funny as some of Steve Martin's other movies, but it probably wasn't supposed to be since it focuses more on relationships. Martin plays a guy who comes home to find his lover in bed with another man, and sets out to find someone else. Assuming that ferns and dogs aren't the only options.This movie does come across as one of Martin's more serious roles. "Grand Canyon" (about race relations in the 1990s), "...And the Band Played On" (about the spread of AIDS) and "The Spanish Prisoner" (about a con game) were his most serious roles, while this one still tends more towards comedy. The strength definitely lies in Martin's character's evolution from complete loner to a man actively in search of a soul mate. Some scenes are obviously thrown in for comic relief. I found the funniest scenes to be the fancy restaurant and the bridge. It's not a great movie, but OK.Also starring Charles Grodin, Judith Ivey and Steve Lawrence, with guest appearances by Merv Griffin, Joyce Brothers and Loni Anderson.

The movie doesn't really have the usual typical sort of comedy you would expect from an '80's Steve Martin movie. It's humor is often more in its little things, or one word that is spoken in its dialog. The movie doesn't build up to its jokes like a normal comedy would do but often things just come out of nowhere. It doesn't make this movie as humor filled as you would perhaps expect but it does make the movie somewhat original and somehow also real pleasant.Too bad that the story is such a weak one. The story doesn't seem to have one clear focus and subplots are not handled well enough. This has as a result that some moments and even characters just don't work out properly for the movie. It makes the movie also really a weak one to watch at times. The love-story just was too weak and not well developed enough. Judith Ivey is also supposed to be in her mid-20's in this movie but instead looks closer to 40, while Steve Martin also works around a bit too much without his shirt on. It are mainly small things such as these that also makes the movie irritating at parts as well as weak, simply since it doesn't work out all as well as obviously intended.This movie could had been a great homage to the lonely guy but instead its story is all over the place, jumping from the one thing to another. It doesn't really give a good or fair portrayal of the average lonely guy, who normally is shy and just not the way Steve Martin portrays it in this movie. Charles Grodin is perhaps way better but he's just only playing second violin in this movie.Still a pleasant enough little movie to watch but just no genre classic, since it has way too many weaknesses, mainly concerning its story.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/