It is a universal truth that a young woman with career satisfaction, a rent-controlled apartment, good health and overall happiness needs a man to make things better. Usually, at the start of a romantic comedy or drama, there is something is going wrong or some sort of upheaval in a woman's life where she has to deal with the consequences before her romantic life takes a turn. However, Crossing Delancey is a breath of fresh air as the female protagonist's life is going really well and she isn't looking for love nor does she care to. But of course, this is romantic dramedy so she will eventually be faced with the possibility of a love connection.

Isabelle enjoys working in a New York City bookstore and the carefree lifestyle she maintains outside of work. But on her weekly visits to her beloved grandmother on the Lower East Side, she is met with desperate pleas for her to settle down with a nice Jewish man. Despite Isabelle's insistence on wanting to be single, she is forced to meet with a marriage broker and even an awkward date with local pickle seller, Sam. While Isabelle believes she can do better than the well-meaning Sam, she starts to entertain a crush on celebrated Dutch-American author Anton who frequents her bookstore. Through mishaps and misunderstandings, Isabelle finds herself in a romantic bind of what to do.

It's easy to see how Crossing Delancey was originally a play, written by Susan Sandler, as there is a certain rhythm to the dialogue. The characters we meet are well-rounded and feel more than two-dimensional. The danger of play adaptations is being stuck in one space but thankfully, there is no sense of claustrophobia in this film. Each different location makes the distance between characters feel wider; the world is bigger than the Lower East Side neighbourhood. Despite being set in a city that everyone knows, the story feels welcomingly new compared to other romantic dramedies of this sort made in more recent years.

What makes Crossing Delancey an enjoyable film is its simplicity. It's not just a ‘boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they fall in love' story. The awkward moments in Ida's kitchen between Isabelle and Sam, the amusing gossip shared between Ida and the matchmaker, the random inconsequential conversations (and scenes) in the bookstore and the misunderstandings overall are why this a gentle reminder that these stories are just as watchable as any high stakes action or awards-baiting films.

Crossing Delancey is an inoffensive romantic drama with little drama and dashes of comedy, mainly from Grandma Ida. These quiet, romantic, low-stakes films are a rare treat these days and luckily, thanks to Criterion highlighting them, we get to revisit them.

Special Features:

New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by cinematographer Theo van de Sande, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
New program on the making of the film featuring actors Amy Irving and Peter Riegert and screenwriter Susan Sandler
Audio interview from 1988 with director Joan Micklin Silver
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Rachel Syme
New cover by Samantha Dion Baker

Crossing Delancey is available now from The Criterion Collection