By Rob Hedelt | The Free Lance-Star newspaper

New 'Goodbye Girl' on TNT lacks a little of the power and charm of the original, but delivers a believable tale that holds up after nearly 30 years.

IT'S BEEN a decade since actor-director Richard Benjamin had a hit people were talking about with "Mermaids."

Maybe that's why he turned to a sure thing of sorts, the Neil Simon comedy "The Goodbye Girl" with 2003-friendly actors Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton as leads.

The result of this remake, which debuts on TNT Friday, Jan. 16, with encores the two following nights, are mixed.

Yes, Simon's love story about a divorcee twice-dumped and an aspiring actor who sublets her apartment still works, though there are times when his witty dialogue seems a tad too glib and dated.

Just as Richard Dreyfuss stole the show from Marsha Mason in the original in 1977, Daniels is the more funny and sympathetic lead this time out.

That's partly because of the story: Heaton plays Paula, a 30-something dancer who gave up the chorus for an actor too sexy to ignore.

When Tony the actor bails out on her, and her daughter, Lucy (Pepsi-girl Hallie Kate Eisenberg), Heaton spends the first half of the film alternating between anger and hurt.

Enter Elliot (Daniels), an actor friend of Tony's who has sublet the apartment for three months while he's in an off-off Broadway production of "Richard III."

Daniels initially gets lost in the story's dated twist about him being into chanting, health food and walking about the house in the buff.

But, like the story's underlying threads of real love and trust, he grows on you.

That's partly because he's good at tossing off Simon's witty rejoinders, but also because he fulfills another requirement of the story by developing a meaningful relationship with Lucy.

Eisenberg is unarguably one of the cutest young actresses to come along in a while. Her huge success in Pepsi commercials makes that clear.

As an actress, she's still learning, and doesn't try to stretch beyond her capabilities here.

Sure, a scene where she's forced to cry comes up a little short. Even grown actors struggle with that one.

But she works well with both Heaton and Daniels, managing the rolled eyes and witty remarks the story throws her way several times per scene.

In the original, Dreyfuss and Mason make some big-screen magic as the loathing she feels for him slowly turns to appreciation and then caring.

Daniels and Heaton generate some heat here, though the transition is initially difficult to buy.

But the scene in which he whisks her off to the roof of the building, then greets her with strings of lights and a white dinner jacket, still brings some magic.

Ditto for the ending when their new relationship is tested, and she must decide whether to overcome her troubled past and learn to trust again.

Heaton is best at conveying the fear and confusion at being left on her own, facing dancing auditions she's no longer young and limber enough to hack.

As a woman charmed by yet another actor, she's a little less sure.

But when Simon's words work, they work well, moving the story forward with a sure hand missing in so many stories today.

This will inevitably be compared to the original, and may not quite measure up to that much-loved film.

But Heaton and Daniels manage to carve out a believable and often appealing "Goodbye Girl" of their own, one that will surely introduce a new generation or two to the witty, whimsical and, eventually, love affirming story that holds up fairly well after so many years.