Iranian Film Festival 2025
Cultural Exchange Program - Iran/ Philippines
Cinema 3 Shangri la Plaza mall
This film is based on Neil Simon's 1977 film, Goodbye Girl. The movie where Richard Dreyfuss won his Oscar best actor award as Elliot Garfield, the offbeat aspiring actor who has to share an apartment with a single mother (Marsha Mason) and her daughter.
In this Iranian version, Shabnam is the single mother who lives with her daughter in a fairly decent apartment and works as a manager in a restaurant. One rainy night, a stranger is frantically trying to enter her apartment. Apparently, Shabnam's ex boyfriend ghosted her but he owes some money to Nasim so to make amends, he allows Nasim, an aspiring actor to stay at Shabnam's apartment.
Clearly a misunderstanding as Shabnam has no idea who Nasim is, and also why her apparently married boyfriend just abandoned her and left without any warning. Obviously there is a great deal of animosity between Shabnam and Nasim who are polar opposites yet each with their own endearing qualities. Soon their living arrangement turns into romance as they learn to accept each other's foibles while still maintaining a sense of common decency. Embracing their differences and learning to blend into each other's complex lives.
This romantic comedy has its charms as it follows to the dot the film upon which it is based, the classic "The Goodbye Girl" by esteemed playwright and director Neil Simon. A bit more cheesy sometimes veering on the corny side yet with cultural nuances inserted, this version mostly succeeds due to the believable performances of the two lead actors.
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