Upon learning from Bella that Grandma has hidden $15,000 somewhere in the house and attached candy store, the boys try to find it so they can pay off their father's debt and he can return home.

Louie encourages the boys to have similar "moxie", but also reveals to them that Grandma herself was traumatized at age 12, when she saw police kill her father and was herself permanently disabled in the ensuing riot.

In the final scene of the film (which implies, but does not explicitly show, Grandma's death), Bella leaves Yonkers for good and sends Eddie and the boys a postcard from Florida, where she has gotten a restaurant job.

After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Gene Saks, opened on February 21, 1991, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran for 780 performances.

"[4] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "A wonderful play about a classically unhappy household that has been turned into a typical, mechanical Neil Simon joke machine.

"[6] Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote "Story of a domineering old woman's tyranny over two generations of offspring is adroitly structured and contains strong human elements, but what proved so affecting onstage seems a bit pat and calculated when viewed in closeup.

But neither is the play negligible; it has a felt, melancholy undertow, and Ruehl and Worth, who both won Tonys for their performances on Broadway, bring out its full, racking sadness.

"[8] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote "In the film version, with Ruehl and Worth repeating their Tony-winning roles, Simon intensifies the barrage of belly laughs and bathos.