Released: October 10th, 1986
Starring: Nickolas Cage, Kathleen Turner, Jim Carey, Helen Hunt, Kevin J. O'Connor
Writer/Director: Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner/Francis Ford Coppala
Description: Peggy Sue faints at a High school reunion. When she wakes up she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.
[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]
***
Despite a solid job of framing the narrative, the major flaw I saw was Turner's character and her performance in particular. While her choices were believable, I never thought she blended in enough by the end to not make her parents want to throw her in a nut house. Remember this was the 60s. She still felt awkward right up to the final scene, and even in the present day, she couldn't decide whether she was nervous, sad, or happy. I do not know how she was nominated for an Oscar. Maybe it's just hindsight here.
First, I would like to dissect the poster. The most glaring omission is not having Nick Cage anywhere. This is probably because Cage was not as big of a name as Kathleen Turner at the time. She was fresh from her role in "Jewel of the Nile" with Michael Douglas a year earlier. But the first time you set eyes on Cage in this movie you knew he should have been front and center. And what was with the key and keyhole? A complete miss.
Still sporting his long hair from "Valley Girls", which is now pushed up into an awesome pompadour, Cage has one of the best entrances into a movie that I've seen in a while: He crazily breaks fortune cookies in a commercial. There is one thing you can say about Cage, he never holds back in a performance. Anyone that's seen "The Wicker Man" can attest to it. The only thing I can't figure out is what accent he is trying to do, I know he had said in an interview that he was channeling Pokey from the Gumby show, but it was weird and almost got him fired.
The movie itself came out at a time when time travel and science were front and center as technology was changing quickly in the mid-80s. Movies such as "Weird Science", "Short Circuit", "Real Genius" and of course, the most famous, "Back to the Future", had dominated the box office and were targeted at young adults. But "Peggy Sue", had a slightly more adult theme of the bunch.
The idea of a depressed, divorced mother of two getting the chance to relive and/or change her life as teenager was something that I think a more adult audience could appreciate, rather than 18-to-24 year-olds that most science-centric movies had targeted in the past. Writers Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner did a good job of keeping Peggy's reaction to everything realistic. She did everything I would do: Freak out, make mistakes, and most of all try and take advantage of her knowledge. Something "Back to the Future" avoided until the second movie.
Despite a solid job of framing the narrative, the major flaw I saw was Turner's character and her performance in particular. While her choices were believable, I never thought she blended in enough by the end to not make her parents want to throw her in a nut house. Remember this was the 60s. She still felt awkward right up to the final scene, and even in the present day, she couldn't decide whether she was nervous, sad, or happy. I do not know how she was nominated for an Oscar. Maybe it's just hindsight here.
The direction by Francis Ford Coppola was fantastic. He captured the early-60s perfectly, and did nostalgia only slightly worse than his counterpart Robert Zemeckis did in "Back to the Future". This movie appeared to give his career a shot in the arm after he had lost some of his magic following "Apocalypse Now". Even though he didn't do much with it, and only directed one movie of note, "Jack" (no, I do not count Godfather III, just like Rocky V never happened). The only mistake he made in this movie was casting his daughter, Sofia, as Peggy's little sister.
The movie had a few holes in it, mainly of the time paradox kind. Peggy's on this quest to "better" her life, but never realizes until the last scene that she can't go back to her old life unless she marries Charlie. This could also be seen as great writing, but I guess after watching the Back to the Futures, I couldn't believe that someone could not realize this.
Rating: 7/10 -- Solid movie that doesn't get to the level of a Back to the Future, but a much more adult story separates it from the pack. A little bit of a "Wizard of Oz" ending, with a did she or did she not dream it, but I think the book written by Michael shows it wasn't a dream.
Also it would be a Nick Cage review without embedding this beauty of a YouTube video.
Enjoy:
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