[Previous reviews had "Delancey" misspelled--the fault is mine. -Editor]
CROSSING DELANCEY
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
Sometimes I come into a review wondering what the hell I'm going to say about it except for "Gee, I really enjoyed this film." Romantic comedies are like that; naming the genre pretty much describes what's going to happen in the movie. You're left with grading the dialogue, the performances and the characters. Well, they're all very good here. As to laughter generated, it was quality over quantity -- you really *like* the characters in this film, you want the two principles (Amy Irving, Peter Riegert) to get together by the end of the film (unless you're a cad or a vixen), and so there's a lot of understanding chuckles here, along with a decent number of healthy guffaws.
Very brief plot synopsis (it's a very small plot): Amy Irving works in a very influential bookstore in Manhattan. She is happy at her job, where she has gotten to know many of the literary talents of our day. She likes her friends and her apartment. She doesn't have a boyfriend, but so what? Besides, there's this famous devil-may-care poet in the area.... On weekends, however, she heads to Delancy Street, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood where her grandmother lives. Her grandmother loves her, but fails to recognize her granddaughter's accomplishments in the face of what is, to her, a major failure in Irving's character's life: no husband. She sets up an appointment with a matchmaker, who knows of a pickle vendor (Riegert) who is interested in her... and away we go.
The character actors are all very good: I particularly liked the actress playing the grandmother, the pair who are the help at the bookstore, and the fellow who plays Irving's married friend who sleeps in her apartment when his wife and he have an argument. Irving herself is fine, if a little low-key compared to everyone else -- but then, she is the foil for almost everyone else in the movie. No, scratch that -- Riegert is her foil, and he does a wonderful job of it. I've enjoyed his work for a long time, but he only seems to do about a film every couple of years. Here he has been cast perfectly, and has great lines to boot. The audience I saw the film with were literally applauding for him to get the girl (I was greatly entertained when an elderly lady sitting near me, watching the poet trying to make time with Irving, muttered "Schmuck" at him).
This is probably being compared to MOONSTRUCK quite a bit -- both are romantic comedies dealing with ethnic neighborhoods in Manhattan. If you want a difference, though, here it is (I like both films a lot): MOONSTRUCK contained characters who were more on the edge, with a slightly bizarre edge, and it seemed to present most of the behavior through fairly sardonic eyes. CROSSING DELANCEY has more realistic characters -- odd at times, but still eccentric instead of gonzo -- and while it also gets its humor from the interaction of the characters, it's less fractious and more sympathetic comedy.
If I hadn't seen MANON OF THE SPRING a couple of months ago, I'd say that this is the best film I've seen since July. Gentle humor, but no less strong because of it's mild nature.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews