Directed by: Norman Jewison
Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Anita Gillette, Julie Bovasso, John Mahoney
Moonstruck is a romantic comedy that is cynical about love. "Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die," says Ronnie (Cage) to Loretta (Cher), who have fallen for each other even though Loretta is engaged to Ronnie's estranged brother Johnny (Aiello).
This is one of the reasons Moonstruck resonates so well, it is not afraid to point out that love is more often than not messy and the idealism which accompanies falling in love usually does not stick around. Because people are imperfect, so is love itself. Loretta Castorini knows this all too well. Her first husband died, and now as she is getting older, she is settling to marry the safe, but awkward Johnny Cammareri. Because Johnny and Ronnie haven't spoken in years (for reasons which make Loretta and the audience do a double take), Johnny asks Loretta to invite him to the wedding. Soon, Johnny is off to Sicily to tend to his dying mother, and Loretta is left to sort out the Cammareri family drama.
Ronnie is an angry young baker whose fiancee left him years ago (in part due to the result of what happened between he and Johnny) and is now convinced love is not in the cards for him...until he meets Loretta. They seduce each other, because Loretta is turned on by Ronnie's outrageous anger, and Ronnie perhaps because this is a way for him to get back at Johnny. But, Ronnie falls for Loretta, and when he tells her, she slaps him and says, "Snap out of it!" He won't. Even though Cage won the Oscar for 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, this remains his career-best performance, a study of a man who knows what losing love is like, and despite his misgivings about it, is willing to try again with a woman who is engaged to his brother. The heart has its reasons. Cher won the 1987 Best Actress Oscar for her role. Loretta is lonely, willing to settle so she doesn't have to spend her days alone, and loves her wacky family. We embrace her.
Moonstruck populates its story with not just Loretta's dilemma, but her parents' as well. Her mother Rose (Dukakis-in an Oscar-winning performance) has been faithfully married to plumber Cosmo (Gardenia-who should have won the Oscar) for many years. Cosmo, however, cannot say the same, as he has an affair with a daffy woman (Gillette) who adores Cosmo, even when he freely admits to ripping off his customers by selling them copper pipes. ("Copper costs money because it saves money") Rose soon learns of the deception, but it is handled not with screaming or heavy drama, but with a deft touch and realism. One night, Rose goes out to dinner by herself and finds herself dining with a middle-aged professor (Mahoney) whose younger date threw a drink in his face and stormed off. They talk, and reveal truths about the other. When the professor offers to take her home, she rejects his advances, because even though Cosmo has been unfaithful to her, she feels it doesn't give her the right to do the same. This is a poignant scene which reveals all you need to know about Rose.
Another brilliant scene is when Rose asks Johnny why men cheat. Not quite knowing how to answer, he replies, "Because they fear death," When Rose tells Cosmo that no matter what he will one day die, he doesn't know how to respond at first, but because he knows her so well, he suspects she knows the truth about him and loves him anyway. The family's dilemmas, which are myriad, are all settled one morning at the Castorini breakfast table. Moonstruck, written by John Patrick Shanley (who won the Oscar for Original Screenplay), does not take the easy way out with slapstick or madcap rushing between rooms so one party doesn't hide from the other. It lays all of the wounds and troubles out on the table to be observed, reflected upon, and resolved in humorous fashion. Moonstruck's big laughs and sentimentality are earned because we love these people and we want them to be happy, whatever happy might be.
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