Izzy Grossman (Amy Irving) works as a publicist at a bookstore on the Upper West Side. Apart from having a crush on the roguish poet Anton Maes (Jerome Krabbe), she\u2019s satisfied with her life as a single career woman. Wanting something greater than mere satisfaction for her granddaughter, Bubbie Kantor (Reizl Bozick) works with matchmaker Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles) to set Izzy up on a date with Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), a pickle store owner who\u2019s carrying a torch for her. Frustrated with this old-world setup, Izzy resists Sam\u2019s courtship, only to realize how well-matched he is to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fans of contemporary rom-coms would be forgiven for thinking Manhattan begins and ends with the Upper West Side. While Izzy lives in that fabled neighborhood, she frequently travels to the Lower East Side to visit her elderly grandmother. The Lower East Side is historically a Jewish neighborhood, and Izzy\u2019s visits show her tenuous connection to her Jewish heritage. Micklin Silver shoots Izzy\u2019s visits in a loose, almost verite style; the shots are frequently at eye level, so we can take in what she\u2019s seeing, and include details that some filmmakers would depict as exotic\u2014like signs in Hebrew or a pair of Hasidic teenagers with long tendrils\u2014in a matter-of-fact way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The difference in the neighborhoods where Izzy and Sam live reflects the contrast in their worldviews. While Izzy works behind the scenes as a publicist for New Day Books, Sam is a more visible part of the larger community at the pickle store he inherited from his father. She seems to be agnostic, where Sam attends services at the neighborhood synagogue every morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can also see the contrast between the characters in the ways they communicate. Izzy works and lives among people who wear their intelligence and impressive vocabularies like designer clothing, but she looks around the rooms she\u2019s in and speaks slowly and carefully when it\u2019s her turn to speak. (You can feel Irving weighing each syllable as she says her lines.) Sam has a more direct communication style, speaking in dense paragraphs and casually throwing off personal anecdotes and allusions to Judaism that serve as a metaphor for things he may not be ready to say out loud. To Riegert\u2019s credit, his matter-of-fact line readings and subtle facial expressions make his dialogue sound more natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the contrasting communication styles, Izzy and Sam have a lot to say to one another. As Sam leaves Bubbe\u2019s apartment after their first date, he tells her an anecdote about how a friend of his became engaged after he replaced his old felt cap with a \u201cgray felt Stetson.\u201d It sounds like a short story someone might have read at a get-together at New Day Books. Before Izzy turns Sam down for a date, her jaw unclenches and her eyes soften. You can see her responding to Sam\u2019s words, knowing there might be more for them than she initially thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a contemporaneous review of Crossing Delancey<\/em>, critic Roger Ebert complained that the film \u201cmakes the mistake of creating characters who are interesting enough to make us care for them – and then denying them freedom of speech.\u201d What Micklin Silver and screenwriter Susan Sandler did with the film contradicts this criticism. They establish that Sam and Izzy don\u2019t know how to communicate with one another at first, and that they adjust to one another\u2019s ways of speaking to say the things they need to say to one another. This process of learning one another\u2019s language and how that can lead to love is one that happens to a lot of people, and watching that process is frustrating and ultimately rewarding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Crossing Delancey <\/em>came out between the releases of the blockbuster comedies Baby Boom <\/em>and When Harry Met Sally<\/em>, both of which featured young professional women finding love in and around a fantasy version of New York. While Crossing Delancey <\/em>was not an instant classic like the other titles, its cozier variation on the romantic comedy genre is just as satisfying as the films that came out around the same time, and it deserves a wider audience. “Crossing Delancey” is available for digital rental and purchase.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/crossing12.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n