DVD: Crossing Delancey

When the subject turns to independent bookstores on film, three distinctive romantic comedies spring immediately to mind.

The first is Beeban Kidron's Antonia and Jane, which features the great Imelda Staunton as Jane Hartman, a nebbishy British bookseller beset with an oddball family, a lover with an Iris Murdoch fetish, and an uncomfortable rivalry with the classmate (Saskia Reeves) who married Jane's erstwhile boyfriend (Bill Nighy), went into publishing, and supposedly achieved the perfect life. Things take an interesting turn when the two women wind up in therapy -- with the same analyst. The movie, though not available on DVD at this writing, is worth keeping an eye out for.

The second is You've Got Mail, the latest incarnation of Miklos Laszlo's Parfumerie, which has been adapted as, among other things, Ernst Lubitsch's classic The Shop Around the Corner. In You've Got Mail, independent bookstore owner Meg Ryan faces off with corporate behemoth Fox Books. The film is a tad kind to the invading hordes (they're led by the affable Tom Hanks, after all). But it's to Nora Ephron's credit that she has provided a pop culture shorthand for the plight of the indie bookstore. Whenever I try to explain to a sibling or high school friend what Olsson's is, the light of recognition fills their eyes and the first thing they bring up is the plot of You've Got Mail.

But few films pay tribute to the indie bookstore as well as the new-to-DVD Crossing Delancey, a romantic fable set in the New York of the recent past, post-Lindsay and pre-Giuliani, a city of immigrants, hot dog stands, and rent-controlled apartments.

The focus is one Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving), a winsome New Yorker with a Bohemian wardrobe and a job organizing author readings at a literary bookstore. The very first scene, a party celebrating New Day Books' survival, gives some hint of the glamor, drudgery, and precariousness of Izzy's existence. Bookstore owner George Martin's defiant, triumphant speech to the partygoers, followed by his exchanges with his employees, says almost everything that needs to be said about independent bookstores.

But if Izzy lives in a rent-controlled apartment and schmoozes with world-famous poets and authors, she also has one foot in the Lower East side, where her immigrant grandmother (Reizl Bozyk) holds court and dreams of the day she'll dance at her granddaughter's wedding.

And she's not just dreaming, either; a mission like this calls for a professional. Enter Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles), matchmaker and possibly Izzy's worst nightmare.

Or is she? For Bachelor Number 1 proves to be Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), a guy from the neighborhood. True, he runs the family pickle stand, hardly the stuff of romantic fantasies, and Izzy already has her eye on a smooth-talking author (Jeroen Krabbe) from uptown. But Sam has some powerful allies, notably Izzy's determined Bubbie, and perhaps the most persuasive weapon of all: a complete lack of a hidden agenda.

Sylvia Miles is surprisingly endearing as the tactless, vulgar, and ultimately kind matchmaker, an earthbound goddess with a raucous laugh and a wheeler-dealer mind-set.

Reizl Bozyk, a veteran of the Yiddish theater, appears to be channeling several boroughs full of immigrant grandmothers in her portrayal of the crafty Bubbie, and I could swear I've been in that kitchen. You can almost smell the soup.

Peter Riegert, who has frequently taken supporting roles opposite flashier types, has a chance to shine here as the grounded Sam, moving with ease from shul on the Lower East side to literary gatherings uptown.

Even if you don't remember Riegert, it's a safe bet you've seen him in something, whether it's a Wendy Wasserstein play, a Jim Carrey farce, or The Sopranos. And when he hit the road to promote his film King of the Corner, the Bethesda audience was charmed by his post-screening talk, where he covered everything from the apparent indestructibility of Eli Wallach to the fecklessness of Hollywood's tendency to write off the over-35 moviegoing public. Call him psychic, given the results of the awards season!

But despite the masculine presence of Riegert, Krabbe, Martin, and supporting players John Bedford Lloyd and David Hyde Pierce, Crossing Delancey is definitely an estrogen-driven affair, with Bozyk, Irving, and Miles heading a multigenerational, multiethnic group of women. Traveling from the grocery store to the self-defense class, we glimpse Hasidic housewives, yuppies, single mothers, retirees, and a mystery woman singing Rodgers and Hammerstein at the hot dog stand. Don't you just love New York?

Of special note is Suzzy Roche, one of the famous singing Roche sisters, who handily steals scenes as Izzy's buddy and possible romantic rival. And in case you're wondering, yes, that wonderful soundtrack showcases several Roches songs.

Since we're on girl talk here, I should mention that a couple of critics felt the film's fleeting raciness marred its general tone. Granted, post-Sex and the City, it's much harder to find shock value in the ladies' steam-room bawdiness or rude comments and sights during the bris scene, but consider yourself warned.

I should add too that Susan Faludi wrote off the film as part of the antifeminist backlash, but that's a bit of a stretch. Crossing Delancey is as much about ethnicity, class, and pretensions as it is about Manhattan lonely hearts, and it's hard not to melt when Isabelle's uptown fantasy dissolves into the very real possibility that love is waiting for her on the Lower East Side.

Besides, Hendrik Hertzberg has a cameo. What's not to love?