Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola | 99 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Barry Miller, Catherine Hicks, Joan Allen, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jim Carrey, Lisa Jane Persky, Lucinda Jenney, Wil Shriner, Barbara Harris, Don Murray, Sofia Coppola, Maureen O’Sullivan Leon Ames, Randy Bourne, Helen Hunt, Don Star, John Carradine

Director Francis Ford Coppola and his colleague Martin Scorsese dominated movie news in October 2019, calling Marvel’s films “theme parks.” The term “despicable” also came up to indicate the value of the aforementioned productions. Ford Coppola in particular came out with little subtlety to air his opinion about superhero films. The filmmaker apparently found the popular action films to be inferior, because they were too popular and without content. A funny observation after seeing his ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’. If the Marvel movies are amusement parks, then Ford Coppola’s work from 1986 can be described as a whirligig. Nice for a while, but after a while you get nauseous.

Coppola made a name for himself in the 1970s with still highly regarded films such as ‘The Godfather’, ‘The Godfather Part II’, ‘The Conversation’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’. You can certainly call that serious cinema. In the 1980s, Ford Coppola ventured into a comedy that resulted in ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’. The film revolves around a 43-year-old housewife who is about to divorce her husband. Things are not going well for this mom and she hopes to find some distraction by attending a school reunion. At one point she faints and when she wakes up to find that she has gone back in time and become a schoolgirl again full of dreams and desires. So she ends up in the 60s again. Thanks to this time travel, she can avoid mistakes from the future. However?

This comedy is a sugary sweet nothing that stands out especially because of the special casting. Helen Hunt plays Kathleen Turner’s daughter (the ladies are only ten years apart), Jim Carrey can be seen in one of his first roles and Nicolas Cage has been cast. Ford Coppola’s nephew once again goes completely over the top as only he can. The fact that Cage (then in his early twenties) and Turner (then in his thirties) have to play teenagers(!) is bizarre. The atmosphere of the sixties is well captured and the acting is not annoying. Yet this film does not stick and this production by Ford Coppola has in common with many of his hated Marvel films…