The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 43

HI 0 II I I Director made actress a working partner opened up this film to meinaway that no one had ever offered in that I just hired as a working actress She let me in on all the casting she let me in on all the script changes She let me collaborate on all of Irving describing director Joan Micklin Silver By John Richardson Los Dally New For Amy Irving filming was a unique experience Because of the openness of director Joan Micklin Silver Irving felt her opinions actually mattered opened up this film to me in a way that no one had ever offered in that I just hired as a working Irving said let me in on all the casting she let me in on all the script changes She let me collaborate on aU of that let me open my mouth any time I felt I needed she said laughing I needed to a lot By the end she used to kid and call me her assistant The collaboration actually began earlier than the filming When Silver took Irving the script the film attached to any studio So Irving agreed to go with Silver to the studios as part of was terribly Irving said with another laugh Warner Bros which bought the package also included Irving in the process sent trailers for approval posters for ai roval I felt I was more in ig league I really did And this film was closer to my heart because of Irving 35 is a fairly guarded person not surprising given her celebrity as director Steven wife And hardly the demure little person she played in Barbra very straightforward and no-nonsense Told an upcoming question might irritate her she said flatly: ask it" Her caution showed when she was asked whether working with a woman director and a woman writer was part of the reason she felt comfortable in speaking up A matchmaker (Sylvia Miles left) helps an elderly woman (Real Bozyk right) introduce her granddaughter Amy Irving center) to a pickle salesman (Peter Riegert) in Grandma knows best is a sweetly funny family conflict early newspaper-director Silver has a fine eye for the little characteristics and behavioral patterns that set classes of people apart She can portray ethnicity without reducing it to cliches although occasionally she overplays her hand A bit of crudely specific sexual dialogue in a sauna at the YWCA seems out of place and a self-defense class for elderly women lingers too long on the slapstick struggling but generally right on target The cast could hardly be better films have been unremarkable her youthful good looks were all that made some of them bearable But as she matures become more interesting The occasional wrinkle and puffiness below her eyes suggest worry and restless nights and emphasize the vulnerability that has always been one of her more enticing qualities Riegert has the rare ability to make common decency seem wonderfully attractive in fact hard to think of another actor who could have brought off this role Bozyk a veteran of Yiddish theater who here makes her film debut is simply wonderful as Bubbie and Miles is hilarious as the matchmaker whose life is founded on non-stop talking and eating be surprised if the two find themselves competing for Best Supporting Actress honors at next Academy Awards ceremony By Robert Butler The Stir's arts and Ttorta(nmnt editor At age 33 Isabelle Gross-man (Amy Irving) likes her life moved away from the Lower East Side of her childhood and carved out a niche uptown where she works in an intellectually trendy bookstore arranging readings and stroking literary egos got her eye on a rugged Dutch writer (Jeroen Krabbe) and Isaac Bashevls hone number what a woman want? is mildly indignant andmother or Bub-) who still lives iborhood below unlisted more co So Izzy when her bie(Reizl in the old Delancey Street hires a nosy matchmaker to set Izzy up with a nice Jewish fellow Izzy protests: a happy well-adjusted single woman who need a man to feel like a complete person Feminists may appreciate those sentiments but best hold their applause In "Crossing writer Susan Sandler and director Joan Micklin Silver prove Bubbie right If this movie so warm and funny it would be downright reactionary has been described as a Jewish which is fairly accurate Instead of being a satiric Italian-American opera is a sweety roman know it would have been a different film if a man had directed it but I also know it would have been a different film if another woman had directed it Joan is a film maker first then a But having thus held off the possibilities of feminist cliche she admitted that sisterhood was powerful Sandler the writer was on the set all the time And Joan and myself I mean the place was run by the ladies It made for a really nice Another pleasure was that Irving identified with the character she played Isadora (Lay) Gross-man a romantically confused New Yorker think all made mistakes and gone home with the wrong she said been a single woman in New York City I hit the salad Some critics notably Richard Corliss in Time magazine have argued that fuzzy values make her less sympathetic It takes her an awfully long time to figure out that Peter sweet Sam Posner the pickle salesman is a better candidate for love than Jeroen pompous novelist But Irving strongly disagreed know done it and smart enough to know she said when in it not looking for the bad in seeing a successful writer seeing the Mr Right And that in view is exactly what made lay an interesting and real character liked her because she feet She made real mistakes ke we Irving said feels like a realistic Joan Micklin Silver director of The Kansas City Star Friday September 30 1988 Page 5D.