Hi, everyone! I don’t know about any of you, but I have always been entranced by stories which feature the characters either time travelling to the past (likely before they were born) or to the future. When it comes to time travel movies, there are the classics (“Back to the Future”), the abysmal (the 2002 remake of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”, starring Guy Pearce), and the tremendously goofy ones (“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”). That brings me to today’s movie, “Peggy Sue got Married” (from 1986), where Kathleen Turner gets the chance to relive her high school years.
The Plot in a Nutshell: Life isn’t looking too bright for Peggy Sue Bodell (Turner). She’s on the cusp of divorce from her wayward husband Charlie (Nicolas Cage), whom she married at the end of high school when she got pregnant. When she goes to her 25th high school reunion with daughter Beth (Helen Hunt) in tow, she meets up with her old school friends, including Richard (Barry Miller), former class nerd turned billionaire inventor. When she, alongside Richard as her King, is crowned as “Reunion Queen”, she ends up fainting on the stage.
When Peggy comes to, she’s shocked to discover that it’s 1960, and she’s been transported into her senior year of high school. After her understandable shock, Peggy is determined to do things right the second time around, as Peggy Sue Kelcher, where she’s expected not to drink, have sex or experiment with drugs. Peggy confides her dilemma to the teenage version of Richard, and in turn for his solution to her time travel conundrum , offers him advice about future inventions in the 1980’s. She becomes closer to her parents (Don Murray and Barbara Harris) and little sister Nancy (Sophia Coppola), fools around with mysterious Bohemian poet Michael (Kevin J. O’Connor), and attempts to prevent herself from getting tied down by Charlie at an early age. But will Peggy discover the reason she fell for Charlie in the first place, or does destiny have other plans in store for Peggy Sue?
Cast and Acting Observations: Kathleen Turner was 32 years old when she made this picture, yet she convincingly plays both a high school teenager and her 42 year old self. This isn’t an easy feat to achieve, but Turner pulls it off with enough charm to make this unlikely scenario plausible by just her performance alone. Nicolas Cage adopts a dodgy accent as Charlie, but nevertheless delivers all the right notes as a character who has more layers to him than Peggy or the audience initially gave him credit for.
Actors Before They were Famous: When I first watched the movie, I was greatly amused to see Jim Carrey in a supporting role as Charlie’s goofball of a best friend, Walter. In addition, future “Lost in Translation” and “The Virgin Suicides” director Sofia Coppola is Peggy’s preteen sister Nancy, five years before she become known for her less than stellar, but not downright horrible, turn as Mary Corleone in “The Godfather Part III”, which, like “Peggy Sue”, was directed by her father, the legendary Francis Ford Coppola.
My Favourite Scene(s) in the Movie: I (and those of you who may detest Maths as much as I always have) got a kick out of the scene where Peggy awesomely lectures her sadistic teacher on how she won’t have have any need for Algebra in the future. But the real scene that makes the movie for me is when Peggy answers the phone in her home, only to realize that she’s talking to her long deceased grandmother (Maureen O’Sullivan). Overcome with emotion, she hurriedly flees, with her mother having to comfort her without realizing the true instigation behind her daughter’s outburst. Anyone who has ever lost anyone close to them can easily empathize with Peggy’s plight.
My Least Favourite Scene(s) in the Movie: While this may just be a ridiculous nitpick in an otherwise enjoyable movie, there was one scene that I found to be a little awkward. After Peggy has revealed her strange situation to Richard, they’re confused as to whether she’s in limbo or dead. Then Richard proposes testing out the “dead” concept, and proceeds to shove Peggy onto the path of an oncoming fire engine to determine this theory. While it’s rather short-lived (with Peggy leaping out of the way just before the engine hits home), it still unsettled me. If she hadn’t jumped away just in the nick of time, then Richard would have been accidentally, but directly responsible for her demise. I know that it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but still.
My Take on “Peggy Sue got Married”: I immensely enjoyed the movie, as I felt that it was a fantastic representation of time travel movies. It may inevitably draw comparisons with the similarly themed “Back to the Future”, which was released just a year prior to this this flick. However, “Peggy Sue” is a remarkable film in its own right, and an unexpected picture from the man who directed “The Godfather Trilogy”.
My Rating and Recommendations: “Peggy Sue Got Married” gets 4 out of 5 stars in my book, as it’s a compelling movie with sympathetic and engaging characters. If you’re intrigued by movies concerning time travel, then please feel free to check out my reviews for “Back to the Future” and “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure“.