Brighton Beach Memoirs

**Brighton Beach Memoirs** is a 1986 American comedy film directed by Gene Saks.

The film was released on December 25, 1986 by Universal Pictures. It is based on Neil Simon's 1982 semi-autobiographical play of the same name.

## Plot

The film centers on Eugene Jerome (Jonathan Silverman), a 15-year-old Polish-Jewish American teenager who experiences puberty, sexual awakening and searching for his identity as he grows up in a crowded house in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York during the Great Depression.

## Cast

* Jonathan Silverman as Eugene Jerome
* Blythe Danner as Kate Jerome
* Bob Dishy as Jack Jerome
* Brian Drillinger as Stanley Jerome
* Judith Ivey as Blanche Morton
* Lisa Waltz as Nora Morton
* Stacey Glick as Laurie Morton

## Production

Filming for "Brighton Beach Memoirs" took place from September 9, 1985 to November 29, 1986 in New York (in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn; Astoria, Queens; and Ridgewood, Queens).

Matthew Broderick (who portrayed Eugene Jerome in the Broadway version of "Brighton Beach Memoirs") was unavailable for the film version of the play due to his commitment to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"; the role was ultimately given to Jonathan Silverman.

## Box Office

"Brighton Beach Memoirs" grossed $2,580,750 during its opening weekend and $11,957,943 worldwide.

## Critical Reception

"Brighton Beach Memoirs" has an approval rating of 69% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 13 reviews with an average rating of 6.00\10.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a rating of two stars out of four and wrote: *"The movie feels so plotted, so constructed, so written, that I found myself thinking maybe they shouldn't have filmed the final draft of the screenplay. Maybe there was an earlier draft that was a little disorganized and unpolished, but still had the jumble of life in it.... The movie was directed by Gene Saks, who directs many of Simon's plays on both the stage and the screen, and whose gift is for the theater. His plays have the breath of life; his movies feel like the official authorized version. Everything is by the numbers."*

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune also awarded "Brighton Beach Memoirs" two stars out of four and noted *"a general softening of the tension in the Jerome household [from the play] ... Here on film the pathos is missing, and all we are left with is jokes badly performed by a weak central character."*

In her review of the film, Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: *"A film of surprisingly gentle charms. Mr. Simon's humor is much in evidence, but it is not the film's strongest selling point."*

Variety declared that "Brighton Beach Memoirs" emerges as *"one of the more successful transfers of a Neil Simon play to the screen" and the overall impact is "mild, but very pleasantly so."*

Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote: *"Brighton Beach Memoirs may be one of Simon's best plays, but the film's heart seems to be beating in a plastic wrapper. There's a kind of glace over everything, a sugary show-biz coat that dulls your taste buds. Everything is bigger, brighter and broader than it should be—though remnants of that simpler, more honest story often peek through."*

Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post called the film *"a regularly funny and sometimes affecting movie that captures, if not always successfully, the kind of back-and-forth of any ordinary family."*