Kathleen Turner makes Francis Ford Coppola’s second-chance fantasy funny and unexpectedly moving. The storytelling is loose, and Nicolas Cage sometimes strains the comedy, but its affection for people making imperfect choices is worth an evening.
Peggy Sue Got Married is a funny, affecting fantasy whose untidy storytelling is worth forgiving for Kathleen Turner. Francis Ford Coppola gives an adult woman another go at adolescence, with her memories intact and her earlier decisions available for reconsideration. There is plenty of comedy in the gap between what she knows and what the people around her expect. The film becomes more interesting when it considers how difficult that knowledge might be to live with.
The adult mind and the teenage body seem to disagree, without Peggy Sue becoming a collection of comic mannerisms. Her impatience is funny because she has been through all this before; her uncertainty matters because experience has not supplied every answer. We laughed at that impatience, then felt sorry for her. Kathleen Turner makes the business of being young again look tiring, and she never assumes that recognising an old mistake means being able to avoid it.
Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner give Peggy Sue room to be curious and occasionally difficult, which helps keep the writing from becoming too sugary. She is allowed to want something different without being scolded for it. The return to family moved us more than we expected: the chance to see familiar people again matters so much to Peggy Sue. The director is patient with that response, letting the pleasure of recognition last rather than rushing to the next joke.
Nicolas Cage is a less comfortable fit as Charlie Bodell. The character needs to seem worth another look, even when Peggy Sue has reason to question her earlier judgement, and the emphatic comic performance sometimes gets in the way. It has nerve and some welcome oddness, but it can pull attention away from her. Barry Miller as Richard Norvik and Joan Allen as Maddy Nagle are more comfortable company; their quieter performances give the lead room to make her complicated responses matter.
Jordan Cronenweth’s cinematography is most useful when it lets us study Kathleen Turner’s face. Her shifts between amusement and dismay tell us more than the nostalgic surroundings supplied by production designer Dean Tavoularis. Those surroundings make the earlier life inviting, which helps explain why Peggy Sue might hesitate before deciding to change it. Yet the film’s fondness for the past sometimes makes her choices feel easier than its premise suggests they ought to be.
Barry Malkin’s editing gives the actors room, but some scenes outlast their jokes. At 103 minutes, this is no ordeal; a firmer pace would simply make the comedy sharper. John Barry’s music helps the affection for these people come through, although the film hardly needs another nudge towards sentiment. The performances are already doing enough to make us care, and the warmer passages can become a little too comfortable.
As a time-travel comedy, it is unusually willing to let the pleasure of meeting people again interrupt the business of changing things. That gives the film much of its appeal, even when the director leaves the story slack. Kathleen Turner’s adult intelligence and teenage unease are enough to carry us through those hesitations. Watch it for her, and allow for a film that occasionally takes longer to get to the point than she does.
