Crossing Delancey (1988)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Amy Irving is a modern-day Manhattan book seller, 33 and still single, who has everything but a husband; her Jewish Bubbie introduces her to a marriage broker. Director Joan Micklin Silver, working from Susan Sandler's screenplay, adapted from her play, is careful to include all types of city life in her scenario: seniors, children, people of different ethnic backgrounds and races, various eccentrics, the wealthy, the working class...this in an attempt, one presumes, to please all audiences. If Silver had been as careful with her main cast of actors as she was in building the story's visual foundation, her film might have been more successful. However, the performances are too colorful, too much of a 'treat', while Sandler's often shameless dialogue doesn't help (at one point, Irving boasts of meeting Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote the story "Yentl," which was made into a film co-starring Irving). The acting, in fact, matches the female group harmonies contributed by the the Roches: slick showmanship presented with mechanized heart. ** from ****

When Crossing Delancey was made the Lower East Side of Manhattan was changing rapidly. The Williamsburg Bridge approach started the change back in the early days of the last century. A midpoint might be the construction of the projects where Reizl Bozyk playing Amy Irving's grandmother still hangs on. Another point would be 1988 where Delancey Street, the heart of the Jewish neighborhood you now see Ms. Bozyk doing her shopping at a Korean grocer and picking up a few words in Korean to get by. Back in the day people like a young James Cagney picked up and was fluent in Yiddish.I'm sure enough of that rapidly changing area which now has Yuppies moving in is still visible. How many matchmakers like Sylvia Miles are still in business? I wager very few if any at all. Amy Irving is such a Yuppie, she's a literary agent but she has ties to the area through her grandmother whom she visits regularly. She's a thirty something who proclaims that she's in no rush to marry. That is almost sacrilege to Bozyk who puts Miles on her case immediately.Moving as she does with the literati Irving is not altogether thrilled with Peter Riegert who with his brother owns a pickle business on Delancey and Essex. But this is the movies and Riegert does gradually grow on her. Especially when she sees that a lot of whom Irving has looked up to turn out to be phonies.Reizl Bozyk who is a lighter version of Molly Picon and a graduate of the Yiddish Theater steals every scene she's in. I'm surprised she wasn't given Oscar consideration. She has some competition with Miles though, the original Yenta. Their scenes remind me of when we got together with my father's family. Some mention should be given Peter Riegert who is great as a plain down to earth guy most comfortable with himself. It's not the most glamorous of jobs, but pickles make him a good living, a steadier one than the people Irving hangs with. His idea of a good place to go is Yankee or Shea Stadium. I imagine he's middle aged now and with his family and the new Yankee Stadium or CitiField.The biggest star of Crossing Delancey is the neighborhood itself which could never be recreated on a Hollywood sound stage. Reason enough to see Crossing Delancey and enjoy the people who live and work there.

Saw this movie when it first released and numerous times later. Great film especially about the time period. I think the performances are very subdued but realistic. Even though the theme is Jewish in nature I still think we could all relate to how love evolves and that sometimes it is directly in front of our eyes and we seem to look for something different.Watching it again tonight I began to realize the soundtrack is a copy of Dave Grusin's On Golden Pond. While not exactly the same notes it has all the overtones, pace, chord structures and all of Golden Pond. Again, really like the film but sad to find that the composer had to copy another really great film soundtrack composer.

I hate romantic comedies, sports movies, horror, and adventure; so I only see the best and this is one of the best movies I've ever seen.In romantic comedies it rates right up there with Annie Hall; As Good as it Gets; Sleepless in Seattle; and Working Girl.Most of the romantic comedies suffer from being a repeat of another better movie. The phrase stop if you've seen this before occurs during the trailer advertisement on TV that I mute as soon as I can. This movie is different.This movie has a simple story to tell, and it tells it well. There's no fluff or filler just to take up time.It's a gut wrenching view of the snobbery we feel and have felt put upon us. The movie looks at ourselves through the eyes of another. I recognized myself and my motivations.The characters are charming and scheming without being over the top. The movie has one other attribute that it shares with excellent movies, it seems over too fast.