Peggy Sue Got Married

Peggy Sue Got Married
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by Paul R. Gurian
Written by
  • Jerry Leichtling
  • Arlene Sarner
Starring
Music by John Barry
Cinematography Jordan Cronenweth
Edited by Barry Malkin
Production
company
Distributed by TriStar Pictures
Release date
  • October 10, 1986 (1986-10-10)
Running time
 103 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $18 million
Box office $41.4 Million

Peggy Sue Got Married is a 1986 American comedy-drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Kathleen Turner as a woman on the verge of a divorce, who finds herself transported back to the days of her senior year in high school in 1960. The film was written by husband and wife team Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner.

The film was a box office success and received positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actress (Turner), Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. In addition, Turner was nominated for Best Foreign Actress at the Sant Jordi Awards.

Plot

Wearing her original prom dress from 1960, Peggy Sue Bodell (Kathleen Turner) sets off for her 25-year high school reunion in 1985 with her daughter, Beth, as company. Peggy Sue has just separated from her high school sweetheart, now husband, Charlie (Nicolas Cage) due to his infidelity. She is wary of attending the reunion because of everyone questioning her about Charlie's absence - they were married right after graduation, when Peggy Sue became pregnant.

She arrives at the reunion and is happy to reconnect with her old best friends, Maddy and Carol. Charlie unexpectedly arrives at the reunion, causing an awkward scene with Peggy Sue ignoring him. The awkwardness is ended when the event MC announces the reunion's "king and queen". The king is Richard Norvik, the former class geek turned billionaire inventor. Peggy Sue is named the queen and walks on stage, but after they wheel out the reunion cake, she faints.

When Peggy Sue awakes, she finds herself back in the spring of 1960, her senior year of high school, after she passed out after donating blood in the school gym (where the reunion was). She finds all of her friends that she just left to be their teenage selves. Still in shock, she allows herself to be taken home while she sees her surroundings are the way they were 25 years before. After a rough first night, she decides to have fun with the experience and behave as if everything is normal. However, when given the chance to break up with Charlie, she thinks it might be best since she knows how it will end.

Peggy Sue makes friends with Richard Norvik to figure out what is going on with her. Charlie gets jealous when she ignores him at lunch, having made arrangements to meet Richard after school to discuss time travel. When she tells him her secret, at first he thinks it is a joke. But, what she said about him and the world would come from someone who had knowledge about the future. Peggy Sue has decided to break up with Charlie; she is the only one who wants that.

One night after a party, Peggy Sue decides to sleep with Charlie. He then flips out and reminds her that she had rebuffed him the weekend before and therefore believes she is playing games, and drives her home. Instead of going inside, she takes a walk and ends up at an all-night cafe. As she walks by, she sees Michael Fitzsimmons--the artsy loner in school she always wished she'd slept with--and goes in to talk to him. After finding out they have more in common than originally thought, they ride off on his motorcycle. In a field, they smoke marijuana and find out more about one another. When he asks if she is going to marry Charlie, she responds that she already did that and will not do it again. After he recites some of his poetry for her, they have sex.

Michael reveals that he wants her to go with him and another woman to Utah (where polygamy is legal) so they can marry and support him while he writes. After his revelation, she tells him he should go to Utah and to write about their night together. In the middle of their conversation, she hears a voice she recognizes singing. When she looks at the stage, she sees that it is Charlie and realizes that she did not know everything about him. Michael is upset, thinking that she declined his offer for Charlie and is ready to leave. After they leave, Charlie auditions for a music agent and is rejected. The next day when Peggy Sue goes to talk to Charlie, he lashes out at her and she gives him a song she "wrote" for him (which ends up being "She Loves You" by The Beatles). She then goes to Richard to say goodbye, saying she wants to stop messing up her life and everyone else's since the reason Charlie stopped singing was her becoming pregnant right before they graduated. Richard proposes, but she refuses because she does not want to marry anyone and he has to be valedictorian. Confused, she visits her grandparents for her birthday. After her grandparents tell her that her grandmother can see the future, she tells them her story. Her grandfather and his lodge friends then try a strange séance ritual to send her back to 1985.

Peggy Sue is then kidnapped by Charlie, leaving everyone at the Lodge thinking that the ritual worked. He tells her that he told his dad that he gave up singing and was given 10% of the business so he can support her. He then proposes and gives her the locket she wore at the beginning of the film. When she looks inside, she sees baby pictures of her and Charlie, which resemble their children. Peggy Sue sees how much he loves her and how much she loves him, and they kiss. They begin to make love, which would again lead to Peggy getting pregnant and marrying Charlie. In the next moment, Peggy Sue is transported back to 1985.

Peggy Sue awakes in a hospital, with Charlie at her side. He is deeply regretful of his adultery and tells Peggy Sue he wants her back. When she questions him about his girlfriend Janet, he swears it is over. It seems there is hope for a reconciliation when Peggy Sue looks at Charlie with new eyes and (citing a reference from her grandfather who claimed that her grandmother's strudel kept the family together) says, "I'd like to invite you over to your house for dinner on Sunday with your kids. I'll make a strudel."

Cast

Debra Winger was originally signed to play Peggy Sue but was forced to back out just before production began due to a back injury suffered in a bicycle accident.

Production

Development

The film was originally going to star Debra Winger and be directed by Jonathan Demme. They had creative differences and Demme left the project, to be replaced by Penny Marshall, who would be making her feature directorial debut. Then Marshall had creative differences with the writers and left the project. Winger then quit out of loyalty to Marshall. Rastar, the production company, offered the film to Francis Ford Coppola hoping to entice Winger back to the project.[3] In the end, Kathleen Turner became the star.

Shooting

Kathleen Turner has spoken numerous times about the difficulty of working with co-star Nicolas Cage. In her 2008 memoir, she wrote that:

"He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for drunk-driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He’d come across a chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket.

On the last night of filming, he came into my trailer after he’d clearly been drinking heavily. He fell on his knees and asked if I could ever forgive him. I said, “Not right now. I have a scene to shoot. Excuse me,” and just walked out. Nicolas didn’t manage to kill the film, but he didn’t add a lot to it, either. For years, whenever I saw him, he’d apologise for his behaviour. I’d say: “Look, I’m way over it.” But I haven’t pursued the idea of working with him again."[4]

Turner also criticized Cage for his decision to adopt a nasal fry for his character, and to wear false teeth. In response to Turner's claims that he had driven drunk and stolen a Chihuaha, Cage sued her for defamation and won.[5] In exchange he received a public apology from Turner, admission from her publisher that the claims were false and defamatory, and a pledge that Turner and the publisher would make a substantial donation to charity.[6]

During an interview in 2018, Turner commented on Cage's nasal voice that:

"It was tough to not say, 'Cut it out". But it wasn't my job to say to another actor what he should or shouldn't do. So I went to Francis [Ford Coppola]. I asked him, 'You approved this choice?' It was very touchy. He [Nicolas Cage] was very difficult on set. But the director allowed what Nicolas wanted to do with his role, so I wasn’t in a position to do much except play with what I’d been given. If anything, it [Cage’s portrayal] only further illustrated my character’s disillusionment with the past. The way I saw it was, yeah, he was that asshole."[7]

Release and reception

Peggy Sue Got Married gained a positive reaction from critics, as it currently holds an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews.

The film opened with $6,942,408 and ended up grossing $41,382,841 in the U.S. It was the first box-office success for Coppola since Apocalypse Now.[8]

Kathleen Turner won the 1986 award for Best Actress from the U.S. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.[9] The film ranked number 17 on Entertainment Weekly's list of "50 Best High School Movies".[10]

This film appeared on Siskel and Ebert's best of 1986 lists.[11]

American Film Institute lists

Musical adaptation

The film was adapted by Leichtling and Sarner into a full-length musical theater production which opened in London's West End theatre district in 2001. Despite receiving solid reviews[14] and a several million pound advance, 9/11 forced the show to close early.

Goodbye Mr. Loser

The 2015 Chinese comedy film Goodbye Mr. Loser has been criticized for its similarities in plot with Peggy Sue Got Married. Two weeks after its premiere, Chinese netizens started posting articles online comparing similar plot elements of the film with those from the 1986 American film.[15] The directors of Goodbye Mr. Loser have denied the allegations of plagiarism with a statement claiming that their film is an adaptation of a theater play which was inspired by a post on a Chinese Internet forum in 2010.[16]

Other films with similar plot

The 2008 Polish film How Much Does the Trojan Horse Weigh? and the 2012 French film Camille Rewinds both tell similar stories.

References

  1. ↑ "PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (15)". British Board of Film Classification. September 29, 1986. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
  2. ↑ Jim Catalano (1995). "Interview: Marshall Crenshaw". steamiron.com. Retrieved 2011-06-02.
  3. ↑ IS 'PEGGY SUE' NEAR THE ALTAR WITH COPPOLA?: FILM CLIPS London, Michael. Los Angeles Times 28 Nov 1984: h1.
  4. ↑ Katherine Thomson (2008-03-28). "Nicolas Cage Sues Kathleen Turner over Dog-napping Tale". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  5. ↑ Katherine Thomson (2008-03-28). "Nicolas Cage Sues Kathleen Turner over Dog-napping Tale". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  6. ↑ SkyNews (2008-04-04). "Kathleen Turner Apologizes to Nicolas Cage Over Dog Theft Allegation". Fox News. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  7. ↑ David Marchese (2018-08-07). "In Conversation: Kathleen Turner". Vulture.com. Retrieved 2018-08-09.
  8. ↑ "''Peggy Sue Got Married'' at Box Office Mojo". Boxofficemojo.com. 1986-12-30. Retrieved 2011-05-20.
  9. ↑ "1986 Award Winners". National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Entertainment Weekly's 50 Best High School Movies". Ew.com. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. Retrieved 2011-05-20.
  11. ↑ "Siskel and Ebert Top Ten Lists (1969-1998)". Innermind.com. 2012-05-03. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  12. ↑ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  13. ↑ American Film Institute. "AFI's 10 Top 10 Ballot" (PDF). Afi.com. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  14. ↑ "Peggy Sue Got Married - the Musical, a CurtainUp review". Curtainup.com. Retrieved 2011-05-20.
  15. ↑ "《夏洛特烦恼》遭遇真烦恼 被指抄袭《教父》导演旧作" (in Chinese). China National Radio. October 17, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Creators of 'Goodbye Mr. Loser' denies plagiarism claim". China.org.cn. October 16, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
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