Plot

A Manhattan single meets a man through her Jewish grandmother's matchmaker.

Isabelle's life revolves around the New York bookshop where she works and the intellectual friends of both sexes she meets there. Her grandmother remains less than impressed and decides to hire a good old-fashioned Jewish matchmaker to help along Isabelle's love life. Enter pickler Sam, who immediately takes to Isabelle. She, however, is irritated by the whole business--at first.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

Isabelle (Amy Irving) is a young independent woman who works in a bookstore. She meets regularly with her friends, and often goes to spend time with her Jewish "Bubbie" (grandmother--wonderfully played by Reizl Bozyk), who thinks it's sad that she doesn't have a man in her life. Bubbie hires a marriage broker who fixes Isabelle up with Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), who sells pickles. Isabelle is actually interested in writer Anton Maes (Jeroen Krabbé), who does readings at her bookstore. She isn't interested in Sam and declines his offer to take her out when they first meet at Bubbie's apartment. But Sam is persistent, and Isabelle slowly warms up to him. She's still interested in Anton, though, so she fixes Sam up with her friend Ricky. A good idea to begin with, but as Isabelle starts to like Sam more and more and discovers that maybe Anton Maes isn't so great, she starts spending more time with Sam.—Henrik Petersen

33-year-old single Isabelle Grossman, who works at a small but prestigious Manhattan bookstore, is a modern, emancipated woman who doesn't need a career or a man to fulfill or define her as a person. If a man does enter her life, she will let it happen, and she would like that man to be the "very separated" Anton Maes, a celebrated local writer whose outward bohemian attitude could be a come-on or just the way he is as a person with everyone. Meanwhile. her Lower-East-Side grandmother "Bubbie" hires matchmaker Hannah Mandelbaum, who promptly sets Isabelle up with pickler Sam Posner. While Sam admits that he is attracted to Isabelle and pursues her ardently, she can't see beyond the fact that he's a set-up and a pickle-vendor. And when she finally can see beyond these and finds a cute, nice man she wants to get to know, it may be too late as Sam may be able to sense Isabelle's apprehension to stick around for long. And is Anton in or out of the picture?—Huggo