#1250: SILVER, Joan Micklin: Crossing Delancey (1988)
SILVER, Joan Micklin (United States)
Crossing Delancey [1988]
Commentary
None
Program
On the making of the film featuring actors Irving and Riegert and screenwriter Susan Sandler.
By Spine #
Crossing Delancey [1988]
Spine #1250
Blu-ray
Joan Micklin Silver’s wonderfully affectionate spin on the romantic comedy infuses the genre with a fresh, personal perspective, following an unmarried Jewish woman’s search for fulfillment in New York City. Happily independent bookstore manager Izzy (a luminous Amy Irving) isn’t looking for love, but she’s forced to reevaluate her desires when she catches the eye of two very different men: a self-centered novelist (Jeroen Krabbé) and the mild-mannered Lower East Side pickle seller (Peter Riegert) with whom her old-fashioned bubbie (scene-stealing Yiddish-theater star Reizl Bozyk) sets her up. A love letter to 1980s Manhattan shot in beautifully burnished, autumnal tones, Crossing Delancey gracefully captures the magic of a city where disparate cultures, generations, and traditions both clash and connect.
97 minutes
2.0 Surround
Color
1:85:1
Criterion Release 2025
2.0 Surround
Color
1:85:1
Criterion Release 2025
Director/Writer
Joan Micklin Silver was 53 when she directed Crossing Delancey.
Screenplay (based on her original play) by Susan Sandler.
Other Silver films in the Collection:
#1176: Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979)
Screenplay (based on her original play) by Susan Sandler.
Other Silver films in the Collection:
#1176: Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979)
The Film
The picture tells a thou …
Well, in this case it does. Izzy Grossman (Amy Irving) and Sam Posner (Peter Riegert) were meant for each other … together now — aah, how cute!
Fortunately, Silver is the real thing. Her Hester Street (1975) did well enough at the box office ($4M gross on a $370,000 budget) to justify bankrolling her films, but she never had much success (Her companion film on Criterion — Chilly Scenes of Winter [1979] only made money later — as a “cult classic”) until this film, which boxed at least quadruple its budget!
Reizl Bozyk (Bubbie) was a star of the Yiddish theatre; and here — in her only film role — grabs your heart strings simply by being herself. Riegert — in a role saddled with emotional land mines — holds his own.
Get your pickles, here. Pickle for a nickel …
Film Rating (0-60):
53
The Extras
The Booklet
The Booklet
Essay by critic Rachel Syme.
“Micklin Silver’s films are uniquely interested in women, insomuch as they put forward, as a basic premise, that women are inherently fascinating characters, given the piles of contradictions heaped upon them daily. Crossing Delancey is Micklin Silver’s most beloved film — and one that is endlessly, addictively rewatchable — because it dares to put a complicated, searching, inconsistent woman at its gooey center, and builds an entire world around her endeavor to sort out just what she is looking for. Her hunt may be specific — there are not too many lonesome women out there being wooed by pickle salesmen — but her ambivalence is universal. Crossing Delancey could only have been made by a woman, because its touch is so light and lived-in; there is nothing didactic or prescriptive about it. It dares not judge a single girl; it is only curious about her … Crossing Delancey is the apotheosis of the sort of stories Micklin Silver’s films wanted to tell — of flinty, precocious women of all ages, trying to find their footing in a rapidly changing world.”
Commentary
None
Program
On the making of the film featuring actors Irving and Riegert and screenwriter Susan Sandler.
Noteworthy — if she had been willing to change her lead from Jewish to Italian, she would have been given a studio deal.
Audio interview
Trailer
Extras Rating (0-40):
Audio interview
Trailer
Extras Rating (0-40):
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