Brighton Beach Memoirs

A strong story about a family in crisis is transformed into a tepid parody of what is supposed to be a Jewish family. The movie has several problems. First, the casting. There is no way that Blythe Danner can pass herself off as a Jewish-Brooklynish mother. She is completely miscast. Second, the Eugene Jerome character has to be one of the most obnoxiously unfunny adolescents in the history of cinema. Not only is he nasty, he is a pervert too, as the movie shows. Third, the staging of the story fails to convey the family's desperate financial straits. That is, the family does not seem as poor as the story suggests. Fourth, the interpersonal issues, which are the strong points of the story, are resolved in a way obviously meant to ensure that the movie has an upbeat ending. The conflict between the two sisters is intense and quite dramatic, yet its resolution is pure schmaltz as their mutual anger inexplicably evaporates. But perhaps the worst feature of the movie is the treatment of Eugene's brother who is the most complex of all the characters. His issues alone could have been the basis of a great movie. Instead, he is relegated to being a straight man for the unfunny Eugene. That the brother, who is a troubled young man, returns to a home housing the likes of Eugene Jerome is proof of movie company can take a perfectly good story and turn it into pulp.

How many of us have read a book or seen a play, and then when the movie version came out we were terribly disappointed? Well, maybe this would be one of those movies for those who saw the play too, but as someone who never had the opportunity to see it on stage, I was extremely entertained by this movie. The characters were funny, the music was great, and the story was interesting and made you feel genuine empathy for the characters, flaws and all. Jonathan Silverman has such good comedic timing, and his lines especially are hilarious. I'm not going to give any spoilers, it's just a nicely done, funny movie showing the inner workings of a middle class family during WWII. So if you never saw the play, and if you have enjoyed other Neil Simon movies, don't be held back by the couple of negative reviews seen here. On its own, Brighton Beach Memoirs is a GREAT movie. I guarantee it (no money back, though).

source: Brighton Beach Memoirs

Trailer—Brighton Beach Memoirs

Brighton Beach Memoirs

How many of us have read a book or seen a play, and then when the movie version came out we were terribly disappointed? Well, maybe this would be one of those movies for those who saw the play too, but as someone who never had the opportunity to see it on stage, I was extremely entertained by this movie. The characters were funny, the music was great, and the story was interesting and made you feel genuine empathy for the characters, flaws and all. Jonathan Silverman has such good comedic timing, and his lines especially are hilarious. I'm not going to give any spoilers, it's just a nicely done, funny movie showing the inner workings of a middle class family during WWII. So if you never saw the play, and if you have enjoyed other Neil Simon movies, don't be held back by the couple of negative reviews seen here. On its own, Brighton Beach Memoirs is a GREAT movie. I guarantee it (no money back, though).

Whether the actors are really Jewish or not, these are some of the most forced Brooklyn/Jewish accents in Hollywood history. The way they spread the schmaltz around it's downright unbearable. Blythe Danner in an unbelievably poor piece of casting, lumbers her way through the part of the Jewish mother like a shiksa doing the horah. The mess of bad interpretations is practically racist. It made it impossible for me to stick with it. Oy gevalt! Avoid this piece of work at all cost. On the other hand if the play comes around to your local theater, go see it--there it works! Neil Simon always works best in live theater anyway, Yep, that's it.

Recently watched this again on HBO. This film is so, so. It does not look anything like the Brighton Beach that I knew growing up and visiting my grandmother in the neighborhood. It's a film, so yeah, artistic license. The one thing that kept annoying me the most, other than the lousy Brooklyn accents, was Jonathan wore a Yankees cap. There is no way a kid from Brooklyn in 1937 would be caught dead in a Yankees cap. He would be wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Maybe he was Yankees fan, I suppose there were a few. The thing is a kid playing stick ball on the streets of Brooklyn would have lasted 5 minutes wearing a Yankee cap.

It's 1937 Brighton Beach Brooklyn. Eugene Morris Jerome (Jonathan Silverman) is a young Jewish boy who dreams of pitching for the Yankees but probably will be a writer. His aunt Blanche and her daughters live with them after her husband's death. The older daughter Nora wants to be in a Broadway play and the younger Laurie is sickly. His father Jack works extra hard to feed the extra mouths. His mother Kate is in charge of everybody. His older brother Stanley is struggling with his job problem. My main problem with this is that Jonathan Silverman is too old to play this role. He's as tall as Brian Drillinger. I can imagine the lines being much funnier coming from a kid. Coming from a 20 year old, it sounds a bit dumb. Gene Saks's directions are functional. It's the words from Neil Simon that gets a few laughs. It is his play that is touching. The translation to the big screen isn't the best but it still works.

This is a gently amusing coming-of-age comedy that comes from the later, more mature period of Neil Simon's writing. Although there are plenty of wisecracks to go around, this is not one of those Neil Simon pieces where every character spouts out one-liner jokes for 2 hours like they're guest stars on a Bob Hope special. There are also dramatic elements (some work, some are overkill) that lend some weight to the story. The performances are good across the board, especially Blythe Danner as the mother (although she and Judith Ivey were oddly WASP-ish choices to play Jewish women). I've never been a fan of Jonathan Silverman, but I will say that he hits the right notes as the obnoxious, gawky, and totally horned-up teen-age narrator/protagonist of the story. The movie is very similar in tone to Woody Allen's "Radio Days," but the latter is far more imaginative and funny than this one.