Used People is a 1992 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 romantic comedy film

Romantic comedy film

Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...

 directed by Beeban Kidron

Beeban Kidron

Beeban Kidron is an English Film Director known for her much-lauded adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Todd Graff, adapted from his 1988 off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 play The Grandma Plays , takes a humorous look at a highly dysfunction

Dysfunction

Dysfunction can refer to:* Abnormality * Dysfunctional family* Sexual dysfunction* Dysfunction , an album by the rock band Staind...

al family living in the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 borough

Borough

A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....

 of Queens circa 1969. Strangely, despite being distributed by 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

 on its initial release in 1992, the movie was put on DVD on March 22, 2011 by Warner Bros. Pictures as part of their Warner Archive Collection

Warner Archive Collection

The Warner Archive Collection is a manufactured-on-demand DVD series. It was started by Warner Home Video on March 23, 2009 with the intention of putting previously unreleased back catalog films on DVD for the first time ever. Using recordable DVDs, they custom burn discs for each order rather than...

.

Plot synopsis

Pearl Berman has just returned home from her husband Jack's funeral, her grief disrupted by her many relatives animatedly discussing which parkway offered the best route to the cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

. Pearl's family tackles any and every subject - from body odor

Body odor

Body odor or body odour, sometimes colloquially abbreviated as B.O., is the smell of bacteria growing on the body. The bacteria multiply rapidly in the presence of sweat, but sweat itself is almost completely odorless to humans....

 to toilet

Toilet

A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...

s to Tupperware

Tupperware

Tupperware is the name of a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for the kitchen and home, which were first introduced to the public in 1946....

 to borscht

Borscht

Borscht is a soup of Ukrainian origin that is popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. In most of these countries, it is made with beetroot as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color...

 - as if it's worthy of a major debate.

Into a household filled with kvetchers steps Joe Meledandri, a distinguished Italian who years ago met Pearl's wayward husband in a bar and convinced him to return to her. He has desired her ever since, and now that Pearl is a widow

Widow

A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...

, Joe feels the time is right to make his move. He invites her for coffee, his first step on the road to seduction.

What remains to be seen is if he can overcome family objections to religious differences and if he's willing to accept Pearl's daughters: the lonely, overweight Bibby and the pretty but psychologically unstable Norma who dresses up as celebrities to escape the grief that has overwhelmed her since the death of her husband and one of their children. At her father's funeral, Norma dresses up the way Jackie Kennedy appeared at the funeral of her husband

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

; appears as Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

 as she serves her surviving son his breakfast; and also impersonates Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...

 and Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

 among others. And those are just some of the crazy relatives that come as part of the package.

Principal cast

• Shirley MacLaine
  Shirley MacLaine
  Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
  
   ..... Pearl Berman
• Marcello Mastroianni
  Marcello Mastroianni
  Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...
  
   ..... Joe Meledandri
• Bob Dishy
  Bob Dishy
  Bob Dishy is an American actor of stage, film and television. He is married to former actress Judy Graubart .He appeared on Broadway in:...
  
   ..... Jack Berman
• Kathy Bates
  Kathy Bates
  Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
  
   ..... Bibby Berman
• Marcia Gay Harden
  Marcia Gay Harden
  Marcia Gay Harden is an American film and theatre actress. Harden's breakthrough role was in Miller's Crossing and then The First Wives Club which was followed by several roles which gained her wider fame including the hit comedy Flubber and Meet Joe Black...
  
   ..... Norma
• Jessica Tandy
  Jessica Tandy
  Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress.She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films...
  
   ..... Freida
• Sylvia Sidney
  Sylvia Sidney
  Sylvia Sidney was an American actress who rose to prominence in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime dramas.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Becky
• Lee Wallace
  Lee Wallace (actor)
  Lee Wallace is an American actor of film, stage, and television.Wallace was born as Leo Melis in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Celia and Eddie Melis. His movie roles include more than a dozen productions big and small, among which are Used People , Batman as Gotham City's mayor William Borg,...
  
   ..... Uncle Harry
• Doris Roberts
  Doris Roberts
  Doris Roberts is an American character actress of film, stage and television. She has received five Emmy Awards. She began her career in 1952, and may be best-known as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond from 1996–2005....
  
   ..... Aunt Lonnie
• Joe Pantoliano
  Joe Pantoliano
  Joseph Peter "Joe" Pantoliano is an American film and television actor. He played the character of Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos, Bob Keane in La Bamba, Cypher in The Matrix, Teddy in Memento, Francis Fratelli in The Goonies, Guido "the Killer Pimp" in Risky Business, and Jennifer Tilly's...
  
   ..... Frank

Principal production credits

• Presenter
  Presenter
  A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
  
   .....Lawrence Gordon
• Executive Producer
  Executive producer
  An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
  
  s ..... Michael Barnathan
  Michael Barnathan
  Michael Barnathan is a film producer who has produced and executive-produced films such as Used People, the first three Harry Potter films, Rent, Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum. He was also the producer for the 2010 film adaptation Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief of...
  
  , Lloyd Levin
  Lloyd Levin
  -Early life:Levin is a native of Paramus, New Jersey, where he attended Paramus High School.-Producing career:He won the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture for his work on United 93. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for the same film. He received a nomination for a Golden Satellite...
  
  
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Rachel Portman
  Rachel Portman
  Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman, OBE is a British composer, best known for her film work. She was the first female composer to win an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Score...
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... David Watkin
• Choreography
  Choreography
  Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
  
   ..... Patricia Birch
  Patricia Birch
  Patricia Birch is an American choreographer and director for musical theatre and film.Born in Englewood, New Jersey, Birch began her career as a dancer in Broadway musicals, including Brigadoon, Goldilocks, and West Side Story . She has directed and choreographed music videos for Cyndi Lauper, the...
  
  
• Production Design
  Production designer
  In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
  
   ..... Stuart Wurtzel
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Gregory P. Keen
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Marilyn Vance

Critical reception

In her review in the New York Times, Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

 observed, "As directed by Beeban Kidron, [the film] makes an international issue out of an Italian-Jewish courtship. It also slathers the ethnic equivalent of corn onto every sentimental scene."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of the Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

said, "The movie is by turns serious, satirical, bittersweet, maudlin, satirical, romantic and farcical... MacLaine is a pro and survives the material... We care about her enough, indeed, to wonder if meeting the Mastroianni character is really the best thing that could have happened to her. He doesn't often seem like a real human in this movie; he's more like an all-purpose writer's device. The odds are against any sane person being able to behave like this man... what the movie could not overcome, for me at least, is the lack of any convincing romantic chemistry between [the two]."

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

stated, "A modern, absurdist sensibility informs the soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Used People... which harks back to '50s weepies... MacLaine's precise acting is laudatory and balanced by a very sympathetic turn by twinkle-eyed Mastroianni, in his best English-language role by far. The support ensemble is excellent."

Rita Kempley of the Washington Post said, "Used People wants to be Moonstruck

Moonstruck

Moonstruck is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison. It stars Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, and Olympia Dukakis....

with matzo balls

Matzah balls

Matzah balls are a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dumpling made from matzah meal.Some recipes may add a number of ingredients, such as stock and seasonings for taste, or seltzer or baking powder for fluffiness. Traditionally, the fat had been schmaltz , which imparts a distinctive flavor, but...

, but it's less an eccentric romantic comedy than an icky three-layered Jewish mother

Jewish mother stereotype

The Jewish mother or wife stereotype is a common stereotype and stock character used by Jewish comedians and authors whenever they discuss actual or fictional situations involving their mothers or other females in their lives who possess mother-like qualities...

 joke... it's rich in character if rather trite in theme and scene."

In The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Michael Sragow observed, "Life goes on — for the audience, seemingly forever — in yet another ethnic comedy-drama ... In the end, love conquers everything from religious differences to mental illness: everything, that is, except the forced eccentricity and bickering stereotypes in Todd Graff's script."

In his review of the videotape

Videotape

A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...

 release, Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

rated the film C- and added, "Everything's in italics in this Jewish Moonstruck... MacLaine honks nasally ... Mastroianni talks in spumoni

Spumoni

Spumone , plural spumoni, is a molded Italian ice cream made with layers of different colors and flavors, usually containing candied fruits and nuts....

 aphorism

Aphorism

An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...

s... the score oompahs with grating merriment as characters parade cutesy tics instead of human traits. With stars as gifted as Jessica Tandy, Sylvia Sidney, and Kathy Bates drowning in the tough-talking treacle, it's one of those movies that gives New York a worse name than it already has."

Accolades

Marcello Mastroianni was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...

 and Shirley Maclaine was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1950...

. The Casting Society of America

Casting Society of America

Founded in Los Angeles, California in 1982, the Casting Society of America is a professional society of about 350 casting directors for film, television, and theatre in Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The society is not to be confused with an industry union. The...

 nominated Mary Colquhoun for the Artios Award for Best Casting for a Dramatic Feature Film.

Inconsistencies

The film was set in 1969, and yet several of the characters referenced The Graduate

The Graduate

The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...

as though it had just recently been released; The Graduate was released in 1967.