Crossing Delancey

Though the film is never quite able to entirely mask its stage origins, Crossing Delancey is generally an affable and thoroughly charming little romantic drama that benefits substantially from Amy Irving’s compelling performance. The story revolves around a successful bookseller named Isabelle (Irving) whose inability to find a husband greatly concerns her meddling grandmother (Reizl Bozyk’s Bubbie Kantor), with the matchmaking efforts that ensue leading Isabelle straight to kindly pickle-maker Sam Posner (Peter Riegert). Director Joan Micklin Silver, working from Susan Sandler’s screenplay, has infused Crossing Delancey with a gentle rhythm that ultimately suits the material quite well and it’s hard not to be impressed by the degree to which she’s transformed the film’s locale of New York City into a character itself. There’s little doubt, however, the movie belongs to Irving; the actress effortlessly steps into the shoes of a surprisingly complex character and manages to turn her into someone the viewer can’t help but sympathize with and root for. (Bozyk, trapped within the confines of a stereotypically fretful Jewish grandmother, doesn’t fare quite as well.) That Irving shares a real sense of chemistry with Riegert certainly doesn’t hurt, although, admittedly, the film does eventually reach a point at which it seems to be spinning its wheels (ie we know that Isabelle and Sam are going to wind up together, and yet Silver keeps throwing more and more obstacles in their way). Still, that’s an awfully minor complaint for a film that is other quite engaging and genuinely romantic.

*** out of ****