Delancey St crossover

Press, 11 August 1989, Page 11

Delancey St crossover

By

JULIE RICHARD

Peter Riegert feels his new movie, the romantic comedy "Crossing Delancey,” will be labelled by critics as a Jewish “Moonstruck.” But he seems to take his predetermined fact in stride. “It’s sure everyone will call it that,” he says, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “But I don’t think that will prevent anyone from enjoying the film. You didn’t have to be Italian to like ‘Moonstruck,’ and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to enjoy this.” Indeed, “Crossing Delancey,” which starts at the Westend today, possesses all the charm of Norman Jewison’s Academy Award-winning “Moonstruck.” And the tonal similarities between the two movies are difficult to ignore. Set in contemporary New York, the picture stars Amy Irving as Izzy Grossman, the independent, single manager of a sophisticated Westside bookstore.

Ostensibly happy with her life style and social status among New York’s literary elite, she nevertheless allows herself to become drawn into her grandmother’s matchmaking scheme to pair her with a Jewish pickle vendor from the lower East Side (Riegert). “It’s really a very common experience,” Riegert says of the movie’s romantic twists. “I think the film’s strongest point is in the choice that Amy’s character has to make. Everybody is constantly examining choices, even when they don’t realise it. “The film celebrates that — the choices people make, especially in romance. These are problems within every ethnic group in the country, the act of growing into adulthood. “I recently went to a screening of the film and there was a crowd of about 12 people and they couldn’t get over it,” Riegert says. Los Angeles Times