A standard trope of the Hollywood romcom, a meet cute requires that characters destined for a romantic entanglement first encounter each other in an awkward, embarrassing or quirky situation. Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason provide a masterclass in meeting cute in The Goodbye Girl, a 1977 Neil Simon comedy that bagged Dreyfuss an Oscar by giving him the chance to do a comedy riff on his Jaws character.
In the novel Ellen Brody and Hooper meet in the unlikely setting of the Amity hardware store. Ellen has gone there to buy a rubber nozzle for her kitchen sink ("the kind with the switch for spraying"), a detail which could be subject to Freudian scrutiny. Hooper is in the cellar rummaging around for cleats and when Ellen hears his approach on the stairs and sees him come through the door, she feels "a surge of girlish nervousness." Hooper, the sexual predator, like the shark, rises from below.
The two engage in some conversation, which a blushing Ellen interprets as mildly flirtatious. Hooper, though, quickly reveals his true love to be sharks "They're beautiful - God, how beautiful they are!" he says, adding a line which, in a slightly different form, made it into the film script. "They're like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery."
The location - but not the scene - also made it into the movie, although the hardware store that Brody visits to get materials for the Beach Closed signs is a lighter more touristy place. The "narrow store" of the novel seems more like the General Store in Bodega Bay or Sam Loomis's business in Fairvale.
