Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) / Comedy-Drama

MPAA Rated: PG-13 for sexuality, some drug content, teen drinking and language
Running Time: 103 min.

Cast: Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Catherine Hicks, Barry Miller, Kevin J. O'Connor, Jim Carrey, Joan Allen, Wil Shriner, Sofia Coppola, Helen Hunt, Leon Ames, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Carradine, Helen Hunt
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Screenplay: Jerry Leichtling, Arlene Sarner
Review published January 26, 2018

Peggy Sue Got Married asks the same kind of "What if?" questions we all have at one time or another, on what we might do differently if we could relive life all over again.

Kathleen Turner (Prizzi's Honor, Romancing the Stone) stars as the Peggy Sue Kelcher (the film's title inspired by a posthumously released Buddy Holly song from 1959, a demo he recorded as a sequel in song to his 1957 hit, "Peggy Sue"), a restlessly unhappy 40-something woman close to divorcing Charlie Bodell (Cage, Valley Girl), her high school sweetheart, who ends up passing out while at their 25th high school reunion, only to wake up back in her high school days in 1960, back at the beginning of their relationship, except with all of the memories and life experience of her future self.  Now she is at the beginning of her relationship with Charlie, and has the chance of not going down the same route to a failed marriage to a philandering alcoholic.  Could she rewrite her personal history by falling for the hunky Jack Kerouac-esque beatnik poet Michael (O'Connor, Color of Night), or will she go for the school nerd with a financially successful future in computers, Richard (Miller, Saturday Night Fever)?

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola who worked as a fill-in gun-for-hire on the project when the original director, Jonathan Demme, left due to creative differences, then Penny Marshall did the same a short time later, from a screenplay from the husband-and-wife first-time screenwriting team of Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner (Blue Sky), it's an unusually light entry for the cinematic heavy-hitter who once helmed epics like the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now.  His 80s films were much smaller in scope as they were, primarily because of his attempt to avoid bankruptcy, but Peggy Sue Got Married feels like one of the fluffiest effort in his filmography --  he does dessert films well, it seems. While no one would really rank the film among his very best, it is certainly a charming vehicle for the director, with some excellent bittersweet moments from a woman who gets to relive the person she once was, and to re-experience a key time in her life, and the lived ones no longer in her life.  What Peggy Sue, doesn't have, though, are her children, who will never come to be if she decides on a different path.

Peggy Sue Got Married would garner three Oscar nods, one for Kathleen Turner's fine performance (herself a fill-in for the originally cast Debra Winger, who suffered a severe injury that left her unable to fulfill her commitment), and the others for Jordan Cronenweth's (Blade Runner) cinematography and Theadora Van Runkle's (The Jerk) costume design, all taking great use of a commitment to a beautiful soft-pink-and-pastel color design.  This one rides the nostalgia wave for the 1950s and 1960s prevalent during the mid-1980s, seeming like a sophisticated cousin of another successful time-hopping high school film released the prior year, Back to the Future. 

Coppola employs a bit of nepotism in his casting, albeit reluctantly in putting his nephew, Nicolas Cage as a co-star, with a supporting role for daughter Sofia as Peggy Sue's younger sister.  Cage, who didn't really want to do the film, adopts a bit of a nasal voice, fake teeth, and quirky inflection that takes some adjustment to appreciate as something more than a caricature (Cage would later admit that he used Pokey (of "Gumby" fame) as his inspiration), is good enough in the role of the teenager with big dreams of becoming a pop star, only to find himself following in his father's footsteps running the family appliance store, offering a range of emotions from a role that could have come across as one-note and unlikeable with an actor with less range.  According to Turner, Cage played the part in this way in order to prove that he wasn't cast just because he was the director's nephew, persisting in doing his own thing, independent of the instruction that Coppola had for him (Turner refused to ever work with Cage again, as the experience, as well as his trouble-making on the set, left a bitter aftertaste).  Cage and unclue Francis also never worked together again.

There are a few nitpicks for me, though nothing substantial enough for me to lower the film a grade.  There's a scene in which Peggy Sue bursts out laughing when discovering her father bought a brand-new Edsel, the most famous of all lemon cars, but surely she would have known and remembered this occurring.  There's a character at the reunion in a wheelchair that is meant to have a significant backstory, but her injury, and Peggy Sue's attempt to changer her fate,is left to the cutting room floor, unresolved. Perhaps a larger criticism is the choice to make these actors play themselves as both 40-something as well as teenagers is also difficult to resolve, as they are obviously too old to be teens, and obviously too young to buy as middle-aged, so it does require a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief to go with its narrative flow.

Though there are definitely moments that rank among the very best efforts for its time of release, Peggy Sue Got Married is a bit uneven at times, especially as it enters its third act, where the tonal shifts become more evident, especially a comical scene involving Peggy Sue's grandfathers Masonic lodge and their very coincidental time-travel beliefs, leading to a conclusion, which Coppola re-shot due to his dissatisfaction with his first take, that doesn't quite jibe with the high-concept premise and solid build-up to the characters we come to know and understand well.  It's as if all of the novel ideas were built into the premise and not nearly as much was put into how it should all resolve at the end. Coppola, who wanted to prove he could be a master filmmaker in any genre, at the very least shows he can handle the whimsical nostalgia dramedy well.  Some might say this film also dabbles into fantasy and science fiction, though that is certainly debatable, as there really isn't any explanation given for the phenomenon experienced by Peggy Sue, which one could even argue is all in her head.

Nevertheless, while it may not exactly stand up to logical scrutiny, taken as a fantastical tale of romantic and nostalgic second chances in life Peggy Sue Got Married does satisfy in its bittersweet reflections, bolstered by nice characterizations and actors who are up to the task of fleshing in the humanity to their roles.

 Qwipster's rating:

©2018 Vince Leo