Brighton Beach Memoirs

This is an absolute cracker ! Based on the real-life story of Neil Simon, a Jewish boy growing up in a typical New York Jewish blue collar family in the late 1930s it gets right inside the mind of its main character and reveals all the turmoils afflicting adolescence in a style that really only Neil Simon could produce for us. In the film Simon appears as the character Eugene ( Jonathan Silverman) and, for one example, his struggles with his emergent sexuality are hilariously but very insightfully demonstrated. In his search for enlightenment he is aided by the experience of his elder brother Stanley (Brian Dillinger) and their conversations on most subjects are very funny indeed, yet also show the sort of tensions that can arise between siblings.

His mother Kate ( Blythe Danner) provides the Jewish mother's role as the lynchpin of the family in all its day-to day needs and occasional crises and Danner's performance is superb. His father Jack (Bob Dishy) is a gentle man who placidly observes the emotional maelstroms going on around him. It just is one of those laugh aloud films with a theme that shows what a rich experience growing up in a loving Jewish family can be. A very definite Five Star experience here.