Diagonaldi
Very well executed
Lightdeossk
Captivating movie !
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
atomicgirl-34996
Peggy Sue Got Married is such a weird film. On one hand, there are parts of the movie that are so magnificently directed that they've stayed with me all these years in spite of how weak the film is on the whole. For example, I wasn't born in the 1960s but those early scenes with Peggy Sue when she first travels back in time are pure magic. I not only can vicariously experience her feelings of awe and wonder at returning to the 1960s, I even become overcome with waves nostalgia about that time period even though I had no idea what life was like in 1960. Coppola really did a magnificent job there.Also, even if you didn't get a feel for the 1960s, those scenes captured perfectly an experience we've all had when we've become disenchanted with our lives today, a desire to revisit an earlier, more innocent time. I've actually had a dream very similar to Peggy Sue Got Married, except I dreamed that I had to returned to the 1980s. It was a very short dream, but I had the same warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia and a sense of happiness that I had "returned", so I could really relate to those scenes of Peggy Sue when she first returns to 1960.So as far as the first act of Peggy Sue Got Married, the film is wonderful. The rest of the film, on the other hand, not so much. Once you get past the initial scenes of Peggy readjusting to family and school life, things start to go south. The story begins to meander. It's basically one scene after another of Peggy Sue looking surprised that she's in the past, expressing happiness at seeing people who had long since passed or trying to explain future technology to a nerdy kid at school. Yes, there's a subplot involving her high school sweetheart. But that's about it. There's no tension to the story or no real statement being made. Like, there could've been tension about whether Peggy could return to the 1980s or not, but there's nothing. There could've been a statement about viewing the past through rose- tinted glasses. But, there's nothing profound being said. There are just little jokes about the past and the present, like a reference about boomboxes (portable radios being larger while everything gets smaller). Okay, funny and cute but so what?The second biggest problem with the movie was the casting. I did not like a lot of the actors in this. They either seemed miscast or were just terrible. Even though Barbara Harris was the right age to play Peggy Sue's mother, she didn't look old enough or have the right look of a 1960s parent like Don Murray did. She looked more like her sister than her mother, so all those scenes of her being motherly to Peggy Sue were just weird. Sofia Coppola was echhh...about as awkward as you could expect for a kid who was put in a movie for the obvious reasons. (Her gawky delivery of, "Teenagers are weird, and you're the weirdest," still lingers in my brain.)However, if I had to choose the worst actor of the bunch, it would be Nicolas Cage. He completely ruins the film. For no reason at all, he puts on this ridiculous voice that's just shy of Jerry Lewis in the Nutty Professor. It's just so obnoxious. But it also ruins the character and the backstory between him and Peggy Sue. He's supposed to be the cool kid who she falls in love with and winds up marrying and yet, ironically, comes out looking like the dorkiest, most immature and most annoying kid in school, even worse than the nerdy classmate. It was so bad that I spent the entire duration of the movie asking what she could've seen in him. Yes, the explanation was that Peggy Sue in 1960 was more naive and clueless but Nicolas Cage made him so dorky and unlikable that I still had a hard time believing that even as a naive teenager she could've fallen in love with him. Also, he was far too young to playing this character in middle age. Were it not for the first act of the movie, I would've rated Peggy Sue Got Married much higher but it gets a 6/10 from me for the story and Nicolas Cage's acting.
MovieGuy109
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.
Ayal Oren
I can't understand how this amazing film is rated so low. Yes the plot seems insignificant, it's almost as if Coppola is doing a Spielberg film here, some even dared calling it Coppola's back to the future - it's not. It does take place in a small town, and has some weird fantastic plot twist at its base but that's just the superficial skin deep external features of the film. Coppola was never so masterful in his command over cinema. Have a look at the opening scene see how the camera moves - the camera movement speaks, it tells you every thing about this movie in the opening sequence with plain camera movement, it doesn't shove it down your throats but lets you see it and get it on your own. I never loved Coppola as much as I did with his three "smallish" movies - Rumble Fish,The Outsiders and this one which for me is the cherry on top of the icing. It's acted superbly see if you notice Helen Hunt and Jim Carrey without looking them up at the credit list. Summing it all up: it's a small story of a woman unhappy about the way her life turned out - but it's done so well and it's such an example of pure cinema, every movie lover should have a look at this masterpiece -just do it with an open mind.
Steffi_P
Every blockbuster has its inferior clones. Peggy Sue Got Married follows the line of 1985's massively successful Back to the Future, with its protagonist travelling back in time a few decades to a world of rock 'n' rollers and high school dances. The similarities end here though, as Peggy Sue swaps Back to the Future's action comedy basis for a sweet romantic fairytale.Kathleen Turner stars as the titular heroine reliving her own youth. She gives a strong dramatic performance, never faltering in her conviction. She emphasises overwhelming emotion of seeing her past brought to life over a sense of surprise, and the character is all the stronger for it. The only trouble is, being in her early thirties she no longer had the appearance of a teenager, but then nor does she quite come across as the knowledgeable older woman. Nicholas Cage by contrast chooses to ham it up with a silly cartoon voice, although funnily enough he does capture the essence of a dopey teenager, albeit in a daft caricature. He's also quite convincing when aged up for the 1980s scenes. Towards the end there are some lovely cameos by veteran performers Leon Ames, Margaret Sullivan and John Carradine. Ames and Sullivan are just wonderfully steady and relaxed, with Ames managing to give eye-catching presence without actually doing much. Carradine is on screen for just a few seconds but he is really memorable with that old familiar voice of his.The director is Francis Ford Coppola. Although his post-70s projects have tended to be disappointing he still has talent as a moviemaker, with the elaborate yet subtle visual compositions that are his forte. The early scenes at the school reunion look fairly random, but notice how Coppola is carefully drawing our attention to various figures who will reappear in 1960, even relatively minor ones like the one played (then-unknown) Jim Carrey. A good example of Coppola's cunning arrangements comes after Nicholas Cage comes off stage after his performance at the party. The camera is behind Kathleen Turner's back, and we back away with her as Cage advances, moving their half of the screen round beside a pillar. The shot looks very natural and unforced, but it's subtly manipulating us and making us share in Turner's slight sense of revulsion.The problem with Peggy Sue Got Married, as with most of Coppola's 1980s output, does not lie in his direction or the efforts of his cast, but in a substandard screenplay. A major fault is that no explanation is given for Turner's time travel jump. Granted, a story like this doesn't need a science answer like in Back to the Future, but even something as light-hearted as a fairy godmother would have sufficed to give things a bit of sense, and would have been a whole lot better than that corny speech about time being a burrito that you fill with memories. The basic idea of the movie is a cute one, and it's not without its emotional tugs (greatly enhanced by a tender musical score), but the story lacks the cohesion and the characters lack the depth to make it a real tearjerker. Peggy Sue Got Married may be only an indirect reworking of Back to the Future, and yet it is as mediocre and dissatisfying as any cheap rip-off.
