Crossing Delancey (1988)

A movie well worth watching
I love this movie for many reasons, but what I took away from it most of all was the dignity of the character played by Peter Riegert. He doesn't ask to be approved of, he knows his worth, and walks proudly through his simple and unprovocative life. He shows the character of Izzy what really matters in life in a quiet and utterly charming way, and in the end he is the source of strength that every woman would love to find in a man. Peter Riegert is a very fine actor who has made some wonderful films, and his portrayal of Sam in this film is as good a job of acting as one could ask for. While not a real fan of Amy Irving, she does a good job, and the other actors are very enjoyable. But the story line carries the film as much as the acting, it is just a good love story about real people with real life joys and heartaches, and it's thoroughly enjoyable. One of the few movies in my archives that I have never tired of watching.

Wistful & Charming via the Lower East Side
This charming film began life as a play whose author also wrote the the screenplay. Director Joan Micklin Silver's affection for her characters is highly evident in the warmth and humor with which she brings their foibles to life. For those who remember living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1980s, just before it became the land of Dual-Income Yuppies With Twins, the movie may also generate some nostalgia.

Just turned thirty-something Isabelle "Izzy" Grossman (Amy Irving) lives in a dingy ground-floor apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in one of those lumbering pre-War buildings with vast shadowy lobbies that have seen better days. She has a job she likes at an intellectually chic midtown bookstore (actually the old Gotham on W. 47th Street) that involves coordinating and presenting readings and book discussions by famous and not so famous authors. Her parents are retired and living in Florida, so her nearest local relative is her "Bubbi" (Grandma in Yiddish), widowed and living on a very modest income in a low-rent housing project wayyyyyy downtown, on the Lower East Side. Loving granddaughter that she is, Izzy visits her Bubbi regularly, and Bubbi dotes on her pretty granddaughter.

However, Bubbi (Reizl Bozyk, once a star of the Yiddish Theater in NYC) is terribly concerned that Izzy has crossed over her landmark 30th birthday without showing any signs of finding a nice Jewish boy to settle down with. Bubbi looks down her nose at Izzy's entire lifestyle - her job, her apartment, and most of all, Izzy's insistence that she is just fine as she is and doesn't need a man to make her feel complete. Izzy's group of close girlfriends seem to be having similar problems finding men - most are unmarried and one has opted to have a baby without benefit of clergy. The viewer is treated to dire scenes of unsmiling single women in business clothes picking up dinner from buffets in the Upper West Side's ubiquitous Korean groceries. The film's view that the life of a single woman in Manhattan is one of unrelieved depression, sadness, and lack of fulfillment, is relentlessly underlined. (At one point, Bubbi quotes an alleged college professor's dictum that, "If you're alone, you're sick.") It is made clear that, despite Izzy's protestations to Bubbi about her contentment with her self-sufficient life, underneath it all Izzy longs for romance and commitment.

Impatient with Izzy's resistance to "doing something" about her unfulfilling life, Bubbi takes drastic action and calls in the community's local matchmaker (Sylvia Miles). When Izzy finds out, she is horrified, but to please her grandmother, she agrees at least to meet Sam, the first man the matchmaker wants to present. Played by Peter Riegert, Sam turns out to be a pleasant-faced, well-spoken young man who has inherited and is running his father's small pickle store in the neighborhood. Sam, as one of the neighborhood's eligible bachelors, has often been the matchmaker's target, but he has resisted her blandishments until the day she turned up and pulled out Izzy's photo. Turns out that Sam spotted Izzy in the neighborhood some time ago as she came downtown to visit her Bubbi, and for Sam, it was close to love at first sight.

So, he's nice looking, college-educated, is perhaps a bit old-fashioned (he is more observant about religious practice than Izzy), but easy on the eyes, nicely dressed, obviously crazy about Izzy and in the market for a serious relationship - it would seem that, between them, Bubbi and the matchmaker have hit pay dirt on the first try, no?

No. Izzy cannot get past the fact that Sam makes and sells pickles for a living on the Lower East Side - hence the meaning of the film's title, "Crossing Delancey": Delancey Street, for you non-New Yorkers out there, is the northern border of the Lower East Side, and chic Upper West Sider that she is, with pretensions to Being Somebody on Manhattan's arty literary scene, Izzy cannot quite get herself across that divide. She turns down Sam's suggestion that they go out to dinner to get to know each other, much to everyone's disappointment.

Sam, however, is determined not to let Izzy get away, and sensing that her reluctance has more to do with what he does than who he is, he sets about trying to broaden her outlook. Sam has his work cut out, as Izzy's see-sawing ambivalence toward him is increased by the distraction of a charismatic but self-involved European author (Jeroen Krabbe) who is part of her bookstore's stable of writers, and who suddenly begins to take an interest in Izzy.

Izzy, at last, must come to some decision about who she is, what she really wants, and where she belongs. Her journey, as she learns to navigate the distance between West 79th Street and Delancey Street is funny, wistful, and sweet, if a tad one-sided in perspective. Some women may object, with justice, to the film's unsubtle viewpoint that a woman alone is a disaster, life without marriage is not worth living, a husband and children are the only path to fulfillment, etc. If this perspective offends you, the film's very real charm will be lost on you. Otherwise, this adorable movie will likely touch your heart.

The cast is delightful, although Amy Irving had deep circles under her eyes and looked nearly ill - she seemed to be photograhped through linoleum - I believe she was going through her divorce from Steven Spielberg at the time, but don't quote me on that. Peter Riegert hits just the right note as Sam, although the character as written is somewhat too good to be true (certainly not Riegert's fault, and perhaps the film's only narrative flaw apart from its naked contempt for unattached women). Carrie Fisher is very appealing as Izzy's best friend, and Reizl Bozyk hams it up as Bubbi, although her hamming pales beside that of Sylvia Miles as the matchmaker. Jeroen Krabbe is sleazily attractive as the self-dramatizing poet.

The film is accompanied by a pretty score referencing an early 1960s love song recorded by former teen-idol Shelley Fabares (remember her?!), and the scenes of life in 1980s Manhattan are authentic and engaging. It's a one-of-a-kind film that most people will take immediately to their hearts.

I recommend Crossing Delancey
As with most viewers, I watched this movie after it's original release.
Reizl Boyzyk, the Yiddish stage actress, puts on an incredible performance as the nosy, yet intentionally good, Bubby Kantor. Amy Irving and Peter Riegert also put on a charming performance of two people who can't seem to 'get it right.' In the end, the romantic style of Sam Posner [Riegert] wins over his lady-love and it's a happy ending. I would suggest this for anyone who is into romantic movies with deep, involved feelings rather than sexual scenes to express emotions between two people who are falling in love. A good movie!