[Isn't It Romantic presents] a series of hard-driving skits, most of which conclude with some kind of punch line or shock—a new dramatic shape that probably issues from … [a childhood apprenticeship] in front of the TV screen. This gives Isn't It Romantic … a compelling stop-and-go movement. Unfortunately,… the prevailing emotional atmosphere is one of injured self-regard and subliminally rationalized prejudice….

Isn't It Romantic, which is set in New York, has the kind of heroine the whole world thinks of as a New Yorker: Janie, a bright, plump, emotionally agitated young Jewish woman, who insults herself with sophisticated quips … and fights off a hopeless boyfriend whose family owns a chain of sit-down delis. If this ethnic waif seems less like a person than a tourist attraction, it's at least partly because she so resembles Rhoda on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show….

[In] Isn't It Romantic, the cutting...