Word: dreyfusses
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...Richard Dreyfuss, who plays a fledgling inventor/author doubling as an elementary school security guard to make ends meet, comes up with some pretty witty lines. Susan Sarandon complements him, as the neurotic failure who flunks her state court reporting test seven consecutive times and is left by a high-school sweetheart to raise a son. And of course, there's the star of it all, Sarandon's neglected nine-year-old son (Will Wheaton), who brings the two unlikely lovers together...
...from the film's opening scenes, where Sarandon burns toast and Dreyfuss battles with his talking scale, The Buddy System leaves little to the audience's imagination. We know before Wheaton ever meets his ideal father that Dreyfuss will play Daddy Warbucks and take the kid under his wing, and that Sarandon will become his new playmate. The plot ostensibly thickens when Dreyfuss's old girlfriend--a mindless blonde who parrots '60s cliches--returns. But the audience has little doubt that everything will somehow work out when the three are seen happily planting tomatoes in the garden...
...Dreyfuss and Stapleton attempt to compensate for much of the confusion created by the film's disjointed and cliche-ridden script and, to a great extent, are successful. Dreyfuss' depiction of the sex-hungry artist whose ambitions are constantly thwarted by his brainless girlfriend (Nancy Allen) make for some memorable moments. More notable is Stapleton, who potrays the archetypal needling grandmother who inevitably winds up alone. The scenes with Stapleton provide the best moments in the entire film...
...first 30 minutes, the movie sounds like little more than a collection of aphorisms propounded by a nine-year-old. When director Jordan occasionally does seize upon a bright idea, he usually destroys it by overstatement. There is nothing inappropriate, for example, about an aspiring artist like Dreyfuss having a Piet Mondrian painting adorning his wall. It is corny and implausible, however, for him to name his dog Balzac and give a Jersey Kosinski novel to a child who whines and calls his mother "monkey nose...
...pewter sheen. In a burst of breathless feature stories on informal entertaining and other trends, Wright was hailed as an innovator. He was catapulted to the top of the new profession of industrial design along with Norman Bel Geddes, Walter Dorwin Teague, Donald Deskey, Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss...