Lost in Yonkers

Movies of Neil Simon plays never seem to be directed by anyone - and this film is a case in point. Two little brothers (Stoll and Damus) are dumped on Grandma by their father, a recent widower, and find themselves unwelcome. Grandma (Worth) runs her candy store and her family on an inhumanly tight rein. Her inability to show love has turned her son, the boys' Uncle Louie (Dreyfuss), into a feckless crook on the run, and daughter Bella (Ruehl) into a near retard, forever thwarted in her dreams of marriage and children. This sounds like a Jewish take on The Glass Menagerie, though Simon leaves one feeling faintly furtive about the odd manipulated tear. Irene Worth is outstanding as the matriarch, rising to the soundless scream that reveals the cost of her regime upon herself. Dreyfuss is in finger-popping mode, but Ruehl seems to have strayed in from the Broadway stage.