Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

The acting was so over-the-top that it totally distracted from the plot. Nicholas Cage's performance was at best forgettable. Whoever thought a period piece with over the top characters would make a good movie was terribly wrong. Too predictable, most of the actors came off just above a cartoon performance.

I saw this film for the first time two or three years ago and was decidedly underwhelmed. However, as with "The Dark Crystal" and "The Lady Vanishes", I adored it on the second viewing. Kathleen Turner is excellent in the title role, playing the world weary 43-year-old Peggy Sue who finds herself in the body of her 17-year-old self to perfection. Nicolas Cage, the nephew of the director Francis Ford Coppola, is every bit her equal as her future husband Charlie. This is a very successful example of nepotism, something for which the Coppola family is well known. In recent years, he's become almost a parody of himself and has starred in some awful films but this is one of his best ones.The film has a very strong supporting cast with the exception of Sofia Coppola, a less successful example of nepotism. What's really interesting about it is that it features three actors (Cage, Jim Carrey and Joan Allen) near the beginning of their careers who went on to bigger things in major or supporting roles and lovely cameos from three elderly actors (Leon Ames in his final film, Maureen O'Sullivan and John Carradine) at or near the end of theirs. Coincidentally, I've seen the latter three in films from the 1930s and/or 1940s in the last few weeks so it's fascinating to see them in later life.The premise of the film is relatively simple but it's extraordinarily effective, extremely relatable and timeless. We all wonder what it would be like to live our lives over again knowing what we do now and we all wish that we could see dead parents, grandparents, etc. so we can tell them how much we love them and miss them. I'd give anything to see my grandparents again.

Peggy Sue Bodell attends her 25 year high school reunion, only to collapse and be transported back to 1960, her senior year. The more she wants to change things, the more she discovers that she makes the same choices as she did before, with a few adjustments. Although she starts by wishing she was a free spirit, and the desire to run away with the local bad boy, she discovers he wants to be a polygamist writer whose wives would take care of chickens for their income. This is at odds with her personal values and she realizes that she is not what she thought she was. There is more self-discovery in this movie than there is learning about those around her, but she does pick up some lessons from them along the way.A side note: I noticed on one review that I read someone was using the scene with Peggy's mother having her jewelry appraised to indicate that she was becoming an independent woman in the early days of the women's movement. I interpreted it that Peggy's parents were dealing with the same problem that led to Peggy and Charlie's problems, which she says herself - "house payments"! Her father owns a hat shop, a business which is surely on the decline at this time, foreshadowing family financial catastrophe in the years ahead. Did anyone else think this, or was there something else going on in your opinion?

The first time I saw this movie, I was very inexperienced, as far as relationships and everything else. The movie bugged me, I did'nt appreciate it at all. But tonight watching it as someone who has now lived through much of what Peggy Sue did, I totally enjoyed the movie. The main message of this movie is to live in the present, and not to think so much about the future. Unfortunately in our current world, we tend to think about the future too much, to the point of not living in the moment ever hardly. This is why this movie resonated with me so much this time around. But I did find it irksome how old everyone looked, most of the cast were well over twenty playing teens. But their performances were pretty good. I remember really not liking Nicholas Cage for around ten years after this movie, I found his nasally falsetto voice very irritating. Now days he is one of my favorite actors. He still seems to be pretty much a regular guy and that is a quality I think a lot of the stars lose pretty quickly after a certain amount of time at the top.