Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

 Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married is an interesting movie. If you have read my movie reviews from past films, you would realize I have many of those regarding films directed by Coppola. He is the man at the forefront of advancing cinema with new various stylistic and technological innovations. Most of them push boundaries with varying results. Here, which is shocking at first, is a film that he made just to make a film. He has strong characters and raw emotions and he makes a story out of it. Mostly, it is nothing special. It is your average story about a middle-aged woman trying to find herself by traveling to her younger years-a very similar concept to Back to the Future. The movie is fun and has some clever concepts and dialogue, but do not go thinking it is the same Coppola who directed The Godfather or Apocalypse Now.

 

Believe it or not, Coppola was actually the third director the studio hired to bring the project to life. This was originally a Jonathan Demme vehicle with Debra Winger in the lead. They had creative differences so Demme left the project which opened the door for Penny Marshall as this film would be her movie debut. Once again, creative issues forced Marshall (and Winger) to leave. The studio, TriStar, hired Coppola to take over the project to entice Winger back. Instead, Kathleen Turner came on board as the titular character. It is a treat if you can have an actress like Turner play in a somewhat offbeat comedy film with fantasy elements. Her performance is the best part about the movie.

 

Peggy Bodell (Kathleen Turner) is 42 years old and lives unhappily with her high-school sweetheart, Charlie Bodell (Nicolas Cage). Charlie is a failed musician and Peggy believes that Charlie blames her for that. She has the made the decision to divorce him. At her high-school reunion, she is mysteriously transported back 25 years earlier to her life during senior year. Peggy Sue is now eighteen again…with a 42-year-old mind! After suffering from initial shock, she believes she could change decisions she made to make her future life better. She also gets to see why Charlie acted the way he did and made the decisions that he did.

 

Kathleen Turner is the best part about the movie. She nailed the comedic moments and the emotional moments. My only concern with Turner is that she looked too old to be a teenager. She acted like one pretty well, but one could see she is way too old. After all, she was 32 when the film was in production. Such is life in Hollywood! Infamously, she and Nic Cage did not get along on set. She claimed that he was arrested twice and stole a chihuahua, which is a Nic Cage thing to do. That said, Nic Cage also did a good job playing a character you just love to hate. Speaking for the future, keep an eye out for Jim Carrey as one of Cage’s bandmates.

 

I think Coppola hit the emotional beats well. I won’t deny that I was moved by the scene where Peggy heard her grandmother’s voice again. Anyone whose grandparents passed on can definitely relate to that and I did because I saw this movie for the first time right after my grandma passed so it was extremely poignant for me.

 

That said, Peggy Sue Got Married is a movie that will captivate you in the moment but you will likely to forget most of it when you try to recall it. It has similar concepts to the far superior Back to the Future, but this film plays more to the comedy side. The 80’s has many films that has the boomer era looking fondly on their lives 20-30 years prior and how life has changed since then. Some of the dialogue will show that. Thanks to Turner’s captivating performance, I do give the film a slight recommend.

 

My Grade: B-