CAN SHE BAKE A CHERRY PIE?: Finding Love in Lost New York

Many of us who were not born in New York City but were determined to end up here eventually had a specific vision of the city that we dreamed about being part of, a vision pieced together from frames of films ranging from Annie Hall to After Hours, When Harry Met Sally to The Warriors, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to Party Girl. When you actually move here, you realize that the vision of the city you had in your head reached its expiration date almost as soon as Giuliani became mayor, but there’s still a lot about it to love. It’s still full of iconic sights, perhaps a little worse for wear but no less wonderful to behold, and populated by a diverse range of quirky people who would probably be considered weirdos anywhere else but in New York.

Newly restored in 4K, Henry Jaglom’s Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? was originally released in 1983: five years before I was born, and many more years before I ever thought about living in New York. An oddball rom-com about a pair of middle-aged divorcees who meet cute on the Upper West Side, it also functions as a time capsule of a rough-and-tumble Manhattan that has largely faded away, replaced by shiny high-rises that no one can afford to live in. But the characters in the film are still fully recognizable and real, and serve as a reminder that the things that really make this city what it is are the people who call it home.

The City That Never Sleeps (Because It’s Too Neurotic)

After her husband leaves her, Zee (Karen Black) roams the streets, muttering to herself about all the things she could have done differently to make him stay. Should she have complained less? Cared about his work more? She seeks answers in the dessert menu of a local coffee shop, where her borderline-hysterical behavior catches the eye of Eli (Jaglom’s brother and frequent collaborator, Michael Emil), a divorced social worker. The two of them embark on a strange but no less sweet romance that is periodically upset by each other’s unbridled eccentricities; Zee is paranoid that her ex-husband is having her followed so that he can find an excuse to avoid paying her alimony, while Eli is so preoccupied with sex that he does offputting stuff like monitor his heart rate during lovemaking and hang upside down in the closet to summon blood to his nether regions. 

Zee, a singer who put her music career on hold when she married, starts performing in a club called Improvisation and contemplates whether she wants a child—and if so, if she wants one with Eli (who has a daughter with his ex-wife). Still nursing the wounds of their previous failed marriages, the two of them are reluctant to put a ring on it again despite their undeniable chemistry. Instead, they complain about each other and others to each other and others, and cross paths with a variety of other patented New York eccentrics, most notably aspiring actor Larry (Michael Margotta), who never appears without his pet pigeon or misses an opportunity to pick up other women in front of his long-suffering girlfriend, Louise (Frances Fisher). Larry David (with an alarming amount of hair) and Orson Welles (as a magician, natch) also pop up, because why not? This is New York, after all. 

A Brand New Start in Old New York

What Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in personality. Indeed, observing the personalities on display on screen and how they mesh and clash with each other is more than enough to entertain. Few actresses have ever had as unique a screen presence as Karen Black, a true New Hollywood iconoclast who also composed music for the film. Her character is, to put it bluntly, a hot mess, but Black makes her strangely endearing amid all her neuroses; the same goes for Emil, an atypical romantic lead if there ever was one. Both Zee and Eli are creatures of self-sabotage who, at certain points, seem determined to tear their relationship apart while also being aware that they need each other if they’re ever going to find something approaching happiness. You know people like this, even if you don’t like people like this; you might even be someone like this, though you may not want to admit it. 

Jaglom shot Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (which takes its title from a lyric in the folk song “Billy Boy” that recurs throughout the film, including in a bizarre rendition performed by Black at Improvisation) in a fittingly freewheeling way, shooting on city streets with real-life pedestrians instead of staging scenes with hired extras. The result is lively, messy, and wonderfully real, allowing the audience to feel as though they not only know these characters, but are attending revival movies and free concerts in the park alongside them. Thanks to this new 4K restoration, it’s the closest thing we’ll get to being able to time-travel back to the New York that those of us too young to truly remember it once dreamed about living in.

Conclusion

A delightful and nostalgic glimpse into the past, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? deserves a place in the pantheon of great New York City movies.

The 4K restoration of Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? opens at Metrograph in New York on February 20, 2026.