Nora Ephron, whose screenplays for silkwood, Heartburn, and When Harry met Sally have assured her a place in Hollywood history books, here makes her directorial debut. Dotie Ingels is the divorced mother of two daughters whose cosmetics counter sales job is clearly the rehearsal platform for her life-long desire – to be a stand up comedienne and appear on The Tonight Show. Bequethed her aunt’s house she sells up, quits Queens and heads for Manhattan and the late night comedy scene. Success follows, but how will her two daughters cope? Do they always just have to see her on televisioin from Los Angeles? Julie Kavner (Brenda in the TV series Rhoda) gives a riotous and sensitive performance as a jewish mum going into orbit on success.
There is a warnm sensitivity over the whole picture (not least when the daughters take off to find the father they haven’t seen in a decade) which makes it a genuinely serious comedy of working mums and confused children.