preppy-3 This is based on a Tony Award winning Neil Simon play. In 1942 an unemployed widowed father leaves his two young sons to live with his tyrannical mother (Irene Worth) while he searches for work. Also around is Bella (Mercedes Ruehl) who is 36 but mentally 16 and Louie (Richard Dreyfuss) who has gotten involved with gangsters.Great movie. They perfectly captured the 1940s look and feel. Also the script is great. Unlike other Simon pictures (which are little more than one joke after another) this perfectly mixes the comedy and drama. The acting is mostly fantastic. Worth is a little one note but Dreyfuss and especially Ruehl are incredible in their roles. This was not a big hit and unjustly overlooked at the Oscars for acting but it's well worth catching.

richard-crane-343-243579 A Wonderful look back to 1930's New York and a dysfunctional family where the two young sons are the only ones who are normal. The casting was perfect and the actors, especially Mercedes Ruehl were more than equal to the task. Richard Dreyfuss again proved his versatility by playing a character much older than he really was. This is the story of Bella, who is slightly retarded, and her efforts to become a normal woman. She is hindered by her domineering mother and the feeling of responsibility to her her and her two little cousins. Her father passed away earlier and the house is full of her mother's feelings of bitterness. The story shows Bella's attempts to escape from her feelings of obligation to family and friends, and become a real woman.

dbishfan Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers is the kind of story that can only be explained in three parts: One part comedy, one part drama and one part miscellaneous. That mix is fantastic. Please see this movie; words cannot really describe it's constantly shifting plot.

kmccalle Memorable, well thought-out characters interact in this family disrupted by WWII. Set (of course) in Yonkers, a domineering grandmother inhibits aspirations of her offspring with selfish, puritanical behavior deriving from her own, difficult upbringing.