Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Neil Simon
Directed by Gene Saks
Starring Jonathan Silverman, Blythe Danner, James Handy, Judith Ivey, Bob Dishy

Features:

• Theatrical Trailer
  

My Advice: Rent it

Eugene Jerome (Silverman) is an aspiring young writer who is living with his family near Brighton Beach, New York, in 1937. Just like every other young man his age, he is obsessed with girls and sports...mostly girls. His aunt and two young (female) cousins also live in the house with them because his uncle passed away a couple of years ago. While he is dealing with his own sexual urges, his family is literally falling apart around him. His dad lost his job, his brother is a gambler, and his mother and her sister are living with years and years worth of tension over a huge repressed fight they've never had. And, to make matters worse, things are not looking good for the family members who are still living in Poland.

I hate to say it--because this is such a good play--but this movie is really not that good. Like I said, the play is great, but it lost a lot in its journey to the screen. There doesn't seem to be anyone that you can pinpoint to lay the blame on, either. Silverman is good at delivering the asides to the camera with a very cynical deadpan, but he is horrible in his scenes with the other actors. I know that the point of the movie is that the world is changing all around him and all he can think about is seeing his first naked woman, but in this movie, he just seems to be separated from everything that's going on a little too much. Not only that, but they really don't make that big of a deal about him seeing this proverbial naked woman, either. There's just no buildup to it. Danner is good as the mother of the family, but even she seems a bit at sea with this script. There isn't any room to really enjoy her character at all. In short, everything about this particular movie seems overly sugarcoated to really let the family story land home with its audience. And as a result, it lands somewhere in the next county instead.

The DVD, sadly, comes with a trailer--and that's it. A commentary track would have been superb for this film, seeing as how Silverman probably has time on his hands. Also, Neil Simon could have come along for the ride to talk about what it was like adapting this particular play for the big screen. Saks is still around, from what I can tell, so there's three people to latch onto for an audio track--would have been a nice bonus. Or at least a fifteen minute interview featurette with these people.

When you add together the fact that this movie is just not a standout, and the DVD lacks in the bonus department, it makes for a rental sometime if you've never seen the thing. As it stands, though, I wouldn't make the leap to adding it to my collection unless I was a Neil Simon completist.