THE EPIC FILM JOURNAL - DAY SEVENTEEN

Film number 20 – Peggy Sue Got Married

Now I am an absolute sucker for time travel movies, especially time travel movies made in the 80’s, especially time travel movies made in the 80’s which go back to the fifties and sixties. My favorite movie of all time – Back to the Future – fits this criteria. My knowledge of the Peggy Sue Got Married never went further than knowing the title, no idea of plot, cast, filmmakers; I hadn’t heard a single review. It wasn’t until I saw that Francis Ford Coppola had directed it that I became interested. The only other comedy that I had seen directed by Coppola was Jack with Robin Williams and that film had horrible reviews, I actually liked Jack, I think it got a lot of undeserved hate.

So onto Peggy Sue, which I believe is the first comedy from Coppola, it’s a pretty simple plot to explain Peggy Sue (played by Kathleen Turner) a recent divorcee goes to her high school reunion and faints into a coma which send her back in time to her teenage life in the 60’s she goes to high school and tries to change her destiny but ends up falling in love again with her husband (Nicholas Cage).

So beginning with the reunion we see tons of great moments featuring the excellent supporting cast, hysterical photos of people back in high school (Jim Carrey’s giant smile being a highlight). So the reunion establishes all of the plot details we need for the story, this whole sequence is quite entertaining, everyone is fun to watch. The time traveling happens and Peggy wakes up in the 60’s dressed in authentic 60’s wear and looking incredibly disorientated. She goes downstairs, sees her family and gets picked up by her future husband Nic Cage who takes her to school. It’s when she goes to school that films biggest flaw becomes abundantly clear; Whilst all of her friends at the reunion have been made to look like they were teenagers, Kathleen Turner cannot help looking exactly like what she is - a thirty year old women. This is no offense to Kathleen Turner, she looks great but she is clearly at least ten years older than the rest of the cast, I’ve done some very basic research to back this up and she was 30 when this was made whilst most of her co stars - Nic Cage, Jim Carrey, Helen Hunt – were all in their early twenties. Maybe it was just the remastered version that I was watching or possibly the makeup was never designed for future advent of high definition but I did find it very jarring in a lot of scenes. As the story progresses it does what I had never really seen a time travel story do – relax – Peggy Sue doesn’t go off on mad adventures she just does what she did in her youth slowly trying to change her destiny and find a new boyfriend. She gets to see her dead grandparents and her estranged sister and tries to make amends. After having a one night stand, realization sets in and she is still in love with Nic Cage no matter how much she doesn’t want to be.

As the film continues you actually get used to Kathleen Turners appearance and the fact that she looks older then everyone doesn’t become too much of an annoyance, to her credit she is carries the film well and makes you care about her. Nic Cage excels as the dopey kid with musical ambitions, he has a very strange accent all the way through that somehow works. The little moments we get to see of Jim Carrey are awesome and you can already see him becoming the future comedic legend.

A nice moment is where she finds the smartest kid in school who will go on to be a future billionaire, she tells him all of the things in the future that will take off greatly – the microwave, hi fi’s, space travel. It plays with the idea that changing the past is ok, which if you have seen Back to the Future you will know that was the giant mistake. As the story moves on and we see her back and forth with Nic Cage the time travel element becomes less relevant and her turmoil of a relationship just becomes quite repetitive. Luckily the film draws to a conclusion before you have time to get really pissed off.

Unfortunately the ending is quite unsatisfying and just feels like no one really knew what to do with the character once she went back in time. There are a lot of strengths in this film, the period detail is absolutely flawless, incredible attention, very cool to watch. The cast are great to watch and the story is decent enough to hold attention. Very rich characters throughout and a nice tone.

7 out of 10.