Wonderful film with Neil Simon again showing that he is the master of writing.Dinah Manoff is just marvelous as the precocious 19 year old who goes to California to see the dad she hasn't seen in 16 years.The film is touching as it first shows that Matthau knows so little about his daughter (and son) but then as the film goes on, he shows all the attributes that a father shows.As Matthau's girlfriend, Ann-Margret is very good. The picture itself provides no screaming of usual Matthau antics. He is genuine here in every sense of the word.The film shows the strong bond that is formed and we're sorry when Libby takes the bus back to N.Y. At least, there is a commitment by the father to keep in touch. We also have to wonder what kind of woman he was married to that drove him away years before.

I just saw the movie. What a great movie it is. Very well written and very strongly performed. This movie basically has everything and teaches us how to combine a philosophical life with practical life. It shows us we might need the both and also more importantly the both ideas have their own values. All the performers did a great job in this. I thought it was great to look at the situation from this point of view. It is about how you want to build yourself not which is the right way of doing it. Great great movie. I feel bad for the person who wrote the comment as "the worst....". I think it is one of the best movies i have ever seen.

which had been performed on Broadway in the mid-late 70's. It was an interesting and light generational & family piece which centers around a teenager girl arriving at the home of her long-absconded father. Dad turns out to be the opposite of everything a girl could have hoped for, a slovenly failure living in a run-down home in L.A. Dinah Manhoff (the daughter of Lee Grant) and Walter Matthau do fine job of father and daughter battling guilt, anger, expectations, hopes and dreams. A line I remember well comes when Ms. Manhoff is berating Mr. Matthau for his failures as a father by comparing him to the steadfast grandmother who raised her and her brother "My grandmother was my father." Catch this little seen film if you can.

This is a modest but affecting little film. Besides his gift for one-line zingers, Neil Simon has a way of giving his characters lines that are both surprising and believable. Dinah Manoff is perhaps a bit abrasively cooky at first, but she moderates the Brooklyn shtick after awhile and comes over as more complex and real. Walter Matthau as her bewildered but finally disarmed dad is consummately believable. Ann Margaret has little to do, but she does it with superb subtlety. Just watch how well she listens and understands