Crossing Delancey (1988)

A bookstore worker has a crush on a novelist. Her grandmother, using the services of a matchmaker, fixes her up with a pickle merchant.

An important topic of discussion when it comes to films which deal with prejudice is the question of how in some of those films prejudice is constructed by the film itself, in order to be subsequently deconstructed by it. For example, Crossing Delancey only works if the viewer accepts that prejudice against a pickle merchant is something which naturally occurs in intellectual circles. One question is whether this assumption stems from social observation or from the same kind of prejudice it tries to fight. Another question is whether the film could not be guilty of the reverse prejudice, that is, prejudice against intellectuals as a class.
If one abandons the above line of analysis, and focuses on individual drama and issues such as loneliness and affective life, the film becomes simpler. Consider the title it received in Brazil: "Love at Second Sight". It's a good indication of how it is perceived, or maybe even of how it is supposed to be perceived. And yet I don't see any love between the bookstore worker and the pickle maker. No, love is probably too wild an assumption to be made based exclusively on what the film actually shows us. Accommodation is more like it. But who would watch a movie called "Accommodation at Second Sight"?
Summing my considerations up, this is a nice little film about accommodations, with little conscience of the social dimension of the drama it presents.

Rating: 51