Crossing Delancey

Director: Joan Micklin Silver
(1988)

Thirty-something, intelligent and beautiful bookselling New York singleton Amy Irving finds herself the unwitting victim of her Jewish grandmother’s romantic scheming when “Bubbie” hires a matrimonial matchmaker to find Irving a fellow. Pickle seller Peter Riegert answers the call and wins us over as the good-natured romantic out to dazzle Irving. However, she’s not convinced that pickles and happily ever after go together, thus managing to fall under the spell of a smooth-operating writer with an accent who oozes sex-appeal but wants the relationship to go by his rules only. Of course, viewers know who will succeed indefinitely but it’s a fun, feel-good movie with a lot of heart, humor and a likable cast. It’s for the same audiences who laughed as Cher slapped Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck and cried when Minnie Driver did in Return to Me.