Film

Soup for One

Name: Soup for One
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1982
Cast: Saul Rubinek, Marcia Strassman, Gerrit Graham, Teddy Pendergrass, Richard Libertini

Romantic comedy
Comedy
Light-hearted

A 1982 New York comedy about a neurotic bachelor chasing the woman he thinks will complete him. Saul Rubinek carries the film through awkward encounters and romantic misadventures with appealing desperation. It's a small, sincere sitcom in movie form—the kind of thing that played multiplexes when romantic comedies didn't need franchises. Sweet-natured and resolutely of its moment.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy farce-tinged romantic comedies where a lovesick hero's campaigns spiral into escalating, slightly absurd set pieces, and you find nervous, self-sabotaging charm funnier than polish.

Skip it if you want a tidy, streamlined plot or a romance that feels sincere rather than frantic, since the whole film runs on one man's manic persistence and it can wear thin.

What it asks of you: Eighty-seven minutes at a brisk clip, with the protagonist's nerves doing most of the work; it is a tight, mostly light ride that rewards staying with its jittery energy.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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The Goodbye Girl1977

Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason navigate heartbreak and unlikely connection in Manhattan. Funny without trying too hard, romantic without sentimentality. A film that understands that loneliness is the subtext of every apartment scene.

But The gender politics and romantic framework are very much of 1977—some will find them dated or uncomfortable.

Marty1955

Ernest Borgnine as a lonely butcher looking for love in the Bronx. Humble, deeply felt, and funny in the way real people being vulnerable can be. Proves that a small story about connection can feel profound without trying.

But It's slow and deliberately unglamorous. There's no comforting narrative arc—just a man and woman finding something real and tentative.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Soup for One

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

After Hours1985

Both films center on a neurotic New Yorker whose desperation for connection is the engine of the narrative, but this one sees the city as an obstacle rather than a backdrop—a feverish inversion of the earnest romantic quest.

Martin Scorsese's only comedy: Griffin Dunne's odyssey through downtown Manhattan one nightmarish evening looking for connection and leaving increasingly bruised. A fever dream about urban isolation and the terror of really meeting someone.

But It's pitch-black, surreal, and actively hostile to romantic-comedy sentiment. The tone whips between slapstick and genuine dread.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin2005

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But Crude humor and sexualized scenes will alienate anyone looking for gentler romcom energy.

When Harry Met Sally...1989

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But The framework of whether men and women can be friends can feel reductive, and the ending validates a pretty conventional romantic resolution.

Broadcast News1987

William Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks in a complex triangle about work, ambition, and compatibility. Smart dialogue, real tension, and characters who don't reduce to archeypes.

But It's more interested in professional anxiety than romance. The ending isn't reassuring for people wanting traditional resolution.

Tootsie1982

Dustin Hoffman in drag solving his dating problems by pretending to be a woman. Absurd premise executed with genuine warmth and insight into loneliness and self-deception.

But The cross-dressing setup, however well-intentioned, can feel gimmicky or uncomfortable to some viewers now.

Making Mr. Right1987

John Malkovich builds a robot, then teaches him about humanity. Weird romantic comedy that trusts its own strange premise. Sincere and genuinely funny about connection and what we're actually looking for.

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Splash1984

Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah in a mermaid romance that's genuinely charming. Spielberg-adjacent magic that takes its premise seriously without self-consciousness.

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Ghostbusters II1989

Both use New York's loneliness and romantic desperation as comedy material, but this one buries it under spectacle and famous faces—the desperation is invisible unless you're looking for it.

Ignore the IP and watch this as a comedy about four middle-aged men trying to matter again in a city that's moved on without them. Peter Venkman's romantic fumbling with Sigourney Weaver plays as genuine pathos wrapped in supernatural buffoonery.

But It's the sequel to Ghostbusters, so it trades on nostalgia and feels bloated compared to the first. The plot is essentially an excuse for set pieces you've seen before.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being1988

The inverse of Soup for One in register and geography, but identical in obsession: two films about men trapped inside their own romantic consciousness, unable to escape even when love is offered.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomáš, a Prague surgeon whose horror of commitment mirrors Allan's desperation for it. Slow, philosophical, devastatingly intimate. A film about bodies, philosophy, and whether we can ever really choose to love someone.

But It's in Czech and English, demands patience, and offers no comic relief. Completely without humor; some will find it glacial and self-serious rather than moving.