peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 02 22 PeggySueGotMarried

Peggy Sue Got Married

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One of Francis Ford Coppola's 1980s misses that I'd been avoiding. Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) has a coronary (?) at her 25th high school reunion (~1986) and wakes up in her 17 year old body (~1960). Again a piece of California nostalgia: high school as the best time of a woman's life. The funniest bits are delivered quick and flat, whereas the schmaltz lingers excessively. The time travel issues are handled with shrugs. I struggle to see how Nicholas Cage (charmless here) made it to Wild at Heart in barely four more years. Jim Carrey, Joan Allen, etc. Non-spoiler: Peggy Sue does not, in fact, get married in this movie.

Four stars from Roger Ebert, mostly on relatability. Vincent Canby at a film festival (?) ("So much key information is missing or left uncertified or undramatized that the film appears to have been edited by termites") and after its general release (the world changed more between 1910 and 1950 than it did from 1950 to ~1986).