The Buddy System

Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfus.

This is a mess of a rom/com. The adolescent boy of a single mom makes friends with an adult male school security guard by virtue of being caught attending school in the wrong school district. Upon the discovery, the child offers his mother as a bribe to the officer to prevent the guard reporting the transgression.

The premise is creative, to say the least, and the performances by Sarandon and Dreyfus are heartwarming and real. I liked this, but as usual, I'm in the minority. This film is vastly underrated, by virtue of the quality of performance and presentation involved. The dialog between those two is natural and believable.

All in all, though it's dated, it's a quirky, cute, heartwarming rom/com. And, while it's not the stuff of Friday/Saturday night viewing, it IS worth making time for.

It rates a 7.2/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Dreyfuss stars in the same role as his Eliot Garfield in "The Goodbye Girl," while Sarandon plays an insecure single mother in this rather shaky romantic comedy. It's all typical. Boy meets girl. Nothing too exciting.

Seemed like a harmless little movie, no exploding cars, morphing robots, no murders. Just a little nerdy (Will W brags on being nerdy, he was just in type) kid with issues, having a single Mom for a parent. She also has issues being enmeshed with Tim (sleeping in each other's beds) and excessively guilt-ridden over his shortcomings. Joe does security at Tim's school, is also trying to write a book, invent a portable dog washer, pay the bills, keep his girlfriend happy (she gets pregnant) and maintain the relationship which Tim is trying to cook up with his mom. Naturally the relationship ebbs and flows, everybody moves, links are broken and reestablished, emotions come and go. All three main actors do a workmanlike job, as their careers are just about to skyrocket.

Nice forum for a young Richard Dryfuss and Susan Sarandon. The story line is a little sappy and way too predictable.

All the characters are stereotypical of the times (early 80's). Maybe seeing the movie in 1984 I would have felt differently about the story line. However, in 2001 it seems trite and fixed.

This is almost the exact same movie. Just like the "Goodbye Girl". All you do is make Dreyfuss character an inventor and turn the little girl into a little boy and voila, "The Buddy System"! I am sure that Richard Dreyfuss was desperate to have another hit, so he picked something that was close to his last one. Too bad it wasn't as good.

If you can't get out and there is nothing to do, it is a nice enough movie to watch. If you can see the "Goodbye Girl" though, WATCH IT!!