Crossing Delancey  

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Crossing Delancey is a 1988 American romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. Joan Micklin Silver directed it, drawing upon a play by Susan Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay. Amy Irving was nominated for a Golden Globe for the film, for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical.

Plot

Isabelle Grossman works for a New York bookstore which supports authors through public readings. When author Anton Maes comes to the bookstore to give a reading, he shows an interest in Isabelle, who is enamored with the intellectual world that is very different from her traditional Jewish upbringing.

Isabelle pays frequent visits to her Bubbe (grandmother), Ida, who lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Anxious for her granddaughter to settle down, Ida turns to the local marriage broker. Although shocked and annoyed, Isabelle allows the matchmaker to introduce her in Bubbe’s kitchen to Sam Posner, who owns the nearby pickle shop.

At first Isabelle is not interested in Sam, believing that he is too working-class for her. Instead, she sets her sights on Anton and the New York intelligentsia. But she also feels guilty for how rude she was to Sam, so she tries to make it up to him by setting him up with her girlfriend Marilyn. In the process, she learns that he did not hire a matchmaker out of desperation and in fact has admired Isabelle from afar for several years. She is deeply touched and begins to like him, but it seems Sam has given up on her and starts dating Marilyn.

One day at a store book reading, Sam shows up, wearing a suit the matchmaker had advised him to buy. Anton arrives as well. Isabelle leaves with Sam, and later agrees to meet him the next day at her Bubbe’s apartment.

After work the next day, however, she is sidelined by Anton and, believing that he is romantically interested in her, goes to his apartment. She discovers instead that Anton wants the convenience of an assistant, not a true partner. Finally seeing through him, the disgusted Isabelle races to her grandmother's apartment late, finding it empty with Ida sleeping on the couch. Heartbroken, she believes she has ruined her chances with the honest and caring Sam. As she cries, Sam enters from the balcony. The two finally are united and Ida feigns confusion, but is gleeful that her plan has succeeded.

Cast

This was Yiddish theatre star Reizl Bozyk’s only film role.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Crossing Delancey" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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