Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)

You won't be disappointed!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

If you want to see an almost perfect demonstration of the proposition that film is a directors's medium, BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS is the movie to see. The performances are uniformly dreadful, leading the viewer to conclude that, without decent direction, actors are largely incompetent. And, in addition to his overall ineptness, Gene Saks , the director, has such a tin ear that he allows his actors to speak in accents incomprehensible as the Yiddish-inflected New Yorkese that presumably was intended. Furthermore, the audience is invited to believe that this story is something of a transcription of Neil Simon's boyhood experiences. We therefore are asked to accept that this tale is a reasonable approximation of the attitudes and values of a first-generation working-class Jewish family of the 1930s. Yet one of the key elements of the narrative presents a situation that is virtually unbelievable, which is that the family accepts and even encourages the prospect of a serious relationship between one of its members and an alcoholic Irish Catholic. It's also doubtful that the suitor's mother would have viewed her son's interest in a Jewish widow with the equanimity her character displays, but that just demonstrates Simon's cluelessness about a world beyond his own. But what's his excuse for such egregious ignorance of the one he purports to be representing? Either he doesn't really understand the culture he's writing about, or he's distorting it to advance his plot. Neither works to the story's advantage, and either option undermines the integrity of the narrative .

Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey deliver wonderful performances here as Jonathan Silverman, as Eugene, recounts his life in 1937's Brighton Beach.What makes the film so good is the relationships among the characters with a backdrop of extremely wonderful family values.Bob Dishy had a marvelous opportunity here as the father of the clan. He gives a restrained but compelling performance as the patriarch of the family.His sons played by Jonathan Silverman and Brian Dillinger are fabulous. There are certain scenes when Silverman is skating or hopping where I'm reminded of Jerry Lewis.As for Danner and Ivey, they too are wonderful. Their mannerisms, intonation and idealism of the Jewish culture are beautifully realized by them.The cinematography is just wonderful. Beautiful Brighton in 1937! Even as the inevitability of war loomed, the film is rich with many of the typical problems faced by families in that period. In a sense, you don't have to be Jewish to experience what the family is going through.A must see for nostalgic buffs, and those of us who believe so strongly in family values.

I starred as Eugene Morris Jerome in my high school adaptation of the play and this film definitely doesn't live up to the script or the imagination of Neil Simon. I know this play backwards and forwards and I can honestly tell you that the acting was off, The production was cheesy. The changes in the play's script were poorly done. If you want to really enjoy this play you should see the actual play, not a Hollywood movie adaptation. The Eugene character lacked soul and was overly sarcastic in all he said. The other characters were off key as well. A general disappointment, messy, disloyal to the play, amateurishly executed!

This is without a doubt one of Neil Simon's best plays turned movies. It's full of great characters, and memorable dialog. Johnathan Silverman makes a great screen version of young Eugene(he was played by Matthew Broderick on stage).This is the first of Simon's autobiographical trilogy, its followed by the wonderful "Biloxi Blues", and closes with the TV movie "Broadway Bound". If I had to say the movie has any flaws it would maybe be that characters sometimes usually speak in obvious dialog, but that's alright because it's great dialog. Rent this little gem, you won't be sorry!