Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1983 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s January 27, 1984, and we’re off to see The Lonely Guy!
The Lonely Guy
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this decade-long project of mine is stumbling into films I have absolutely no memory of. Especially when it stars someone I enjoy. The Lonely Guy is a perfect example of this.
Larry Hubbard (Steve Martin) is dumped by his girlfriend in the opening moments of the film and he immediately falls into this odd sub-genre of men in the world called “Lonely Guys.” This group even has its own store where you can rent cardboard cutouts of celebrities for dinner parties or just to have someone to talk to. (Yes, this is actually mentioned in the film.) As Hubbard adjusts to his life as a lonely guy, he befriends Warren (Charles Grodin), a fellow lonely guy who shows him the ropes as he is the more senior of the two.
Eventually, Hubbard finds not only success by writing a guide for Lonely Guys, but he also finds love once again and brings Warren into his new little family.
It’s difficult to say what they were going for with this film. At times it’s a straightforward comedy, and other times it reaches Airplane! levels of absurdity. At the end of the day it felt like a very long filmed Saturday Night Live sketch from the 70s, and looked like it as well. To say Arthur Hiller’s directing is underwhelming would be kind.
I have stated before I was never a fan of Grodin, but he seems to have finally found the right role in this film as I didn’t groan every time he came on screen.
The Lonely Guy is very uneven, but still a fun, albeit forgettable, watch.
1984 Movie Reviews will return on Feb. 3, 2024 with Reckless!
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