After the dazzling invention of his collaborations with Carl Reiner, particularly The Man with Two Brains, this film provided a marked and slightly awkward change of pace for Steve Martin. After he finds his girlfriend in bed with another man, Martin is escorted through the rather sad world of the "lonely guy" by a sympathetic Charles Grodin; Judith Ivey plays the woman who offers him the chance of escape. It's slickly directed by Arthur Hiller and there are some genuinely funny passages. But Martin is strangely subdued and the film is stolen from under his nose by the ever-excellent Grodin. Based on the novel The Lonely Guy's Book of Life by Bruce Jay Friedman.

A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.