moonspinner55 Review of Peggy Sue Got Married

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Should have been dynamite...instead it's a pallid sitcom

[5/10 · 5 February 2008]

Francis Coppola's strangely unaffecting, unrewarding comedy-drama with nostalgic leanings, all about a depressed wife and mother (Kathleen Turner) who suffers a breakdown at her high school reunion. She takes a trip back in time to her bobby sox days, when her father drove an Edsel and her future ill-suited husband was a crooner in a doo-wop group. Despite her obvious age, Turner is well-cast in this sentimental scrapbook, and she does very well with the transformation. Not so Nicolas Cage playing her spouse; apparently trying to come up with something eccentric in this by-the-numbers cad of a husband, Cage turns the guy into a off-putting geek (with the voice of a twelve-year old). Disastrous as he is, Cage isn't the weakest link of the picture--that would be the screenplay. Promising much more depth than it can deliver, the script takes Peggy Sue around in a circle, and the journey isn't an amusing, appealing or memorable one. ** from ****