A funny movie about getting serious.

Can an independent, contemporary woman find happiness with a guy who sells pickles? Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) is an attractive, intelligent Jewish woman in her early 30s. She has a good job and a nice apartment on the Upper West Side, and she values her independence; she often visits her grandmother Bubbie (Reiz Bozyk), who lives on the Lower East Side and wants Isabelle to meet a nice Jewish man and settle down. Bubbie goes so far as to obtain the services of Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles), a matchmaker who finds the "perfect" man for Isabelle: a pickle salesman named Sam Posner (Peter Riegert). Isabelle thinks Sam is a nice enough guy, but she has a hard time imagining herself spending her life with the pickle man, and she isn't sure if she wants to pursue the relationship. However, Sam is taken with Isabelle and goes out of his way to change her mind. Crossing Delancy was directed by Joan Micklin Silver, whose breakthrough film Hester Street also examined Jewish culture on the Lower East Side, albeit from the vantage point of the 1890s. ~

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 Bubbie, (grandmother) Ida (played by Yiddish theatre star Reizl Bozyk in her only film role), who lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Anxious for her granddaughter to settle down, Ida turns to the local marriage broker (Sylvia Miles). Although shocked and annoyed, Isabelle allows the matchmaker to introduce her to Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), who owns the pickle shop on Essex, below Delancey Street.

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 sorry for Sam and tries to set 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. Deeply touched, Isabelle agrees to meet him at her grandmother's house.

After work, 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, 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.

Release Date: August 24, 1988

Distrib: Warner Brothers


Boxoffice: $16,262,415 2014: $31,496,100