Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

RELEASED IN 1986 and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "Peggy Sue Got Married" chronicles events when the title character (Kathleen Turner) faints at her 25th high school reunion and mysteriously finds herself back in school just before graduation, 25 years earlier! Will she make the same mistakes or make things better? Nicolas Cage plays her beau while Barry Miller plays a beatnik romantic interest. Catherine Hicks & Joan Allen appear as her besties and Lisa Jane Persky her nemesis. Kevin J. O'Connor is on hand as a geek wiz while Jim Carrey has a peripheral role. This is perhaps Coppola's most entertaining film in a popcorn-entertainment sense. It immediately brings to mind "Back to the Future" (1985), but is more adult-oriented and (obviously) comes from a female perspective. It also recalls "17 Again" (2009) and is closer in tone to that flick. If you like those movies you'll probably like this one. The movie offers a nice mix of superficial-yet-genuine amusement and weighty reflections. Cage employs an interesting weird-axx voice to the point that I was wondering if he was dubbed. Keep in mind that Turner was 31 during filming and it would be impossible to make her look genuinely 18 again; same thing with many of her costars. As such, you have to suspend disbelief a bit when you see them back in high school. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour & 43 minutes and was shot in Southern Cal (Santa Rosa, Petaluma & Coverdale). WRITERS: Jerry Leichtling & Arlene Sarner. GRADE: B+

Kathleen Turner's performance in the title role is the primary selling point of 1986's Peggy Sue Got Married, a somewhat charming comic fantasy that I have to constantly remind myself was actually directed by Francis Ford Coppola.Turner plays Peggy Sue Bodell, a divorced mother of a daughter (Helen Hunt) who goes to her high school reunion and shortly after being crowned reunion queen, faints, bumps her head, and when she wakes up, Peggy Sue is back in her senior year in high school.Unlike similar time-travel stories like the Back to the Future trilogy, instead of making sure the past happens the way it supposed to be, Peggy Sue decides to run with this opportunity, utilizing what she knows about the future in order to change it, her primary focus being the re- thinking of her relationship with her ex, Charlie Bodell (Nicolas Cage), which began in high school but Peggy Sue finds getting people behind her knowledge of the future is a lot more difficult than she imagined.The film is entertaining for the most part and provides some light laughs, but the whole thing just has an emptiness to it that doesn't sustain the length of the film. The screenplay is very talky and makes the lead character come off as kind of a smart-ass, which is a real detriment to the proceedings. We're supposed to be behind Peggy Sue but the screenplay is fighting her all the way.Kathleen Turner works hard in the title role and actually received her only Oscar nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress, though I think she has definitely done better work. Nicolas Cage turns in one of his worst performances as Charlie Bodell, using a high squeaky voice that just grates on the nerves. I don't know why Uncle Francis allowed him to get away with this. The rest of the cast is solid though, especially Don Murray and Barbara Harris as Peggy's parents and Barry Miller as Richard Novick, the school nerd who actually believes what Peggy Sue is trying to sell. Future stars Jim Carrey and Joan Allen can be spotted in small supporting roles and that's future Oscar-nominated director Sofia Coppola, the director's daughter, playing Peggy Sue's little sister.The film provides some entertainment value, but the whole thing just seems pointless because Peggy Sue's journey doesn't really change anything.

There's something about "Peggy Sue Got Married" that really stuck with me. It's like when the premise and way the movie was made is written on paper, you think "There's no way this is going to work" but then it does. I was really surprised with how much this picture affected me emotionally.Kathleen Turner plays Peggy Sue Bodell, who is attending her 25-year high school reunion with her daughter Beth (Helen Hunt). Peggy Sue married right out of high school but now she and her husband, Charlie (Nicolas Cage) have separated. It's awkward enough answering the same questions over and over to the people that haven't seen you in decades but then her husband shows up and things go from bad to worse. She is nevertheless named "Prom Queen" and accepts the award, but when on stage, she faints. When she wakes up, she discovers that it's once again the spring of 1960. With her memories of the future, she tries to alter her past for the better. The film follows her as she rediscovers who she was at the time and tries to find a way to return to the present.There's something about this movie that really hits home. Travelling back in time and altering the past is a desire that in a way, everyone has. Sure people tell you that they wouldn't go back and fix their past mistakes because "those mistakes made them who they are" but come on, we all know the day you wake up in your high-schooler's body, the first thing you're doing is buying Baseball cards to stash away, warning people about 9/11 and meeting Elvis in person, before he gets fat. Peggy Sue seizes the opportunity to do that stuff right away, but then gets side-tracked when she realizes that this trip back in time can be a very emotional experience. With the body of a teenager and the mind of a mother, she reacts very differently to her own parents and realizes how much she missed being a teenager, or being in the same house as her mother, father and sister, or her grandparents (who have in present day been dead for some time). There's something really touching about that and it makes you think back at your own teenage years; if you could go back, who would you be nicer to, who would you appreciate more, who would you stand up to? Yes it would be awesome to return to a time where you could amass money and power, or change history for the better, but there is also something uniquely appealing about just being able to interact with the people from your own past and get a new perspective on what the world was like back then.One of my favorite moments in the film is when Peggy is talking to her then-boyfriend Charlie (Nicholas Cage). This isn't the same guy as he is years later. He's a nervous kid who is doing everything to impress her and is completely in love with the woman. He's anxious and vulnerable too. Check out the scene when Peggy, who now knows the man better than he does finds that she is once again, falling in love with him. She tries to initiate sex with him in his car, but the guy is so taken aback that he refuses and kicks her out. Isn't that what would really happen if you were confronted with someone that was 25 years older than you are, but was disguised as someone your own age? It's little moments like that that really make the movie because it doesn't feel contrived despite the outlandish premise, it feels absolutely genuine.Another element that really helps make you buy into this whole situation are the performances. With excellent costumes and makeup, we have Jim Carrey, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Catherine Hicks and others playing both adults and teenagers and the effect isn't perfect, but the performances sell them. Some of the people I was watching with found that Nicolas Cage as Charlie had a pretty irritating voice when he was 18, but I found that it was very believable that he would have a goofy, nervous voice when he was younger. I'm pretty sure if I looked at any recordings of myself at that age, I would have been pretty annoying too. The actor that really needs to have the spotlight on her is Kathleen Turner, who does a fantastic job. There's almost an implication that while inside the body of her 18-year old self, her mind goes back and forth between the maturity of her older and younger self. She pulls it off not with words, but with subtle changes in her face. Any scene where Peggy Sue is interacting with her mother contains many subtle nuances and although it seems impossible, the 32-year old actress convincingly plays a teenager. It's a spectacular performance and you're an aspiring actor/actress you need to check it out and study this film so get yourself a good DVD and start wearing out that fast forward and rewind button.It might take a bit of time for you to warm up to it, but there's something really special about this film. I love any story that has to do with time travel because of the moral implications, the possibilities and the dangers that are associated with it. In this case, it made me think about traveling to the past in a whole new way. I still think I'd go back in time to stop Skynet first, but I'd certainly make a point to visit my past because of my experience watching the film. This is the kind of movie that you watch and enjoy both for the technical aspect and the story. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing it again. (On DVD, January 28, 2014)

Francis Ford Coppola has been one of my favorites. He has crafted a number of spectacular movies, but this is not one of them. Turner is dull in the lead performance and the story has nothing new to do or say. It does not even find a way to recycle the clichés. It ends up uncreative and dull. The supporting performances are just as bad, lots of campy acting. Never has a Coppola movie ever been so boring or so stale in its conveying of plot elements. It tries to be likable but ultimately falls flat on its face. do yourself a favor and watch any other Coppola movie- even Jack over this one. Sofia Coppola is just as miscast as she would later be in The Godfather: Part III.