RELEASED IN 1986 and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "Peggy Sue Got Married" chronicles events when the title character (Kathleen Turner) faints at her 25th high school reunion and mysteriously finds herself back in school just before graduation, 25 years earlier! Will she make the same mistakes or make things better? Nicolas Cage plays her beau while Barry Miller plays a beatnik romantic interest. Catherine Hicks & Joan Allen appear as her besties and Lisa Jane Persky her nemesis. Kevin J. O'Connor is on hand as a geek wiz while Jim Carrey has a peripheral role. This is perhaps Coppola's most entertaining film in a popcorn-entertainment sense. It immediately brings to mind "Back to the Future" (1985), but is more adult-oriented and (obviously) comes from a female perspective. It also recalls "17 Again" (2009) and is closer in tone to that flick. If you like those movies you'll probably like this one. The movie offers a nice mix of superficial-yet-genuine amusement and weighty reflections. Cage employs an interesting weird-axx voice to the point that I was wondering if he was dubbed. Keep in mind that Turner was 31 during filming and it would be impossible to make her look genuinely 18 again; same thing with many of her costars. As such, you have to suspend disbelief a bit when you see them back in high school. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour & 43 minutes and was shot in Southern Cal (Santa Rosa, Petaluma & Coverdale). WRITERS: Jerry Leichtling & Arlene Sarner. GRADE: B+

There's something about "Peggy Sue Got Married" that really stuck with me. It's like when the premise and way the movie was made is written on paper, you think "There's no way this is going to work" but then it does. I was really surprised with how much this picture affected me emotionally.Kathleen Turner plays Peggy Sue Bodell, who is attending her 25-year high school reunion with her daughter Beth (Helen Hunt). Peggy Sue married right out of high school but now she and her husband, Charlie (Nicolas Cage) have separated. It's awkward enough answering the same questions over and over to the people that haven't seen you in decades but then her husband shows up and things go from bad to worse. She is nevertheless named "Prom Queen" and accepts the award, but when on stage, she faints. When she wakes up, she discovers that it's once again the spring of 1960. With her memories of the future, she tries to alter her past for the better. The film follows her as she rediscovers who she was at the time and tries to find a way to return to the present.There's something about this movie that really hits home. Travelling back in time and altering the past is a desire that in a way, everyone has. Sure people tell you that they wouldn't go back and fix their past mistakes because "those mistakes made them who they are" but come on, we all know the day you wake up in your high-schooler's body, the first thing you're doing is buying Baseball cards to stash away, warning people about 9/11 and meeting Elvis in person, before he gets fat. Peggy Sue seizes the opportunity to do that stuff right away, but then gets side-tracked when she realizes that this trip back in time can be a very emotional experience. With the body of a teenager and the mind of a mother, she reacts very differently to her own parents and realizes how much she missed being a teenager, or being in the same house as her mother, father and sister, or her grandparents (who have in present day been dead for some time). There's something really touching about that and it makes you think back at your own teenage years; if you could go back, who would you be nicer to, who would you appreciate more, who would you stand up to? Yes it would be awesome to return to a time where you could amass money and power, or change history for the better, but there is also something uniquely appealing about just being able to interact with the people from your own past and get a new perspective on what the world was like back then.One of my favorite moments in the film is when Peggy is talking to her then-boyfriend Charlie (Nicholas Cage). This isn't the same guy as he is years later. He's a nervous kid who is doing everything to impress her and is completely in love with the woman. He's anxious and vulnerable too. Check out the scene when Peggy, who now knows the man better than he does finds that she is once again, falling in love with him. She tries to initiate sex with him in his car, but the guy is so taken aback that he refuses and kicks her out. Isn't that what would really happen if you were confronted with someone that was 25 years older than you are, but was disguised as someone your own age? It's little moments like that that really make the movie because it doesn't feel contrived despite the outlandish premise, it feels absolutely genuine.Another element that really helps make you buy into this whole situation are the performances. With excellent costumes and makeup, we have Jim Carrey, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Catherine Hicks and others playing both adults and teenagers and the effect isn't perfect, but the performances sell them. Some of the people I was watching with found that Nicolas Cage as Charlie had a pretty irritating voice when he was 18, but I found that it was very believable that he would have a goofy, nervous voice when he was younger. I'm pretty sure if I looked at any recordings of myself at that age, I would have been pretty annoying too. The actor that really needs to have the spotlight on her is Kathleen Turner, who does a fantastic job. There's almost an implication that while inside the body of her 18-year old self, her mind goes back and forth between the maturity of her older and younger self. She pulls it off not with words, but with subtle changes in her face. Any scene where Peggy Sue is interacting with her mother contains many subtle nuances and although it seems impossible, the 32-year old actress convincingly plays a teenager. It's a spectacular performance and you're an aspiring actor/actress you need to check it out and study this film so get yourself a good DVD and start wearing out that fast forward and rewind button.It might take a bit of time for you to warm up to it, but there's something really special about this film. I love any story that has to do with time travel because of the moral implications, the possibilities and the dangers that are associated with it. In this case, it made me think about traveling to the past in a whole new way. I still think I'd go back in time to stop Skynet first, but I'd certainly make a point to visit my past because of my experience watching the film. This is the kind of movie that you watch and enjoy both for the technical aspect and the story. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing it again. (On DVD, January 28, 2014)

After I could transfer them to DVD format, all my childhood films were finally available, and what a night I spent two days ago, I laugh, I cried and I meditated. I showed my family to my wife, the way it was and the way I was. But the film was slowly filling my heart with melancholy especially the sight of my parents. I couldn't believe how young, how baby-faced they were … and seeing myself so little, so innocent, so full of premises, I couldn't help but focus on all the stuff I would have made if only I knew how tough life would be, If only I knew.But no one ever knows. At least we all deal with the same rules, and maybe that's what makes life worth living, but imagine just for once, if we could. Haven't you ever wondered what if you could get back to the past, and provide one piece of advice or two to yourself? Or haven't you simply wished to travel back to time if only to speak a last time to the people who left you? Francis Ford Coppola's "Peggy Sue Got Married" is a sweet and tender fantasy film that explores all these thrilling possibilities. Indeed, that's the kind of delightful plot lines no one could possibly resist because it carries many premises on both comedic and dramatic level.I suspect the idea grew in the mind of a clever screenwriter with all these 'what if' interrogations. And although it is probably inspired by the high school/ nostalgia/ coming to age wave characterized by the success of "Back to the Future" and Howard Hughes' teenage films of the 80's, the film borrows also some elements to a very defining movie of Francis Ford Coppola's generation, "American Graffiti". It's set in 1960, it has cars and rock'n'roll and it encapsulates the youthful innocence of the pre-Vietnam, pre-Kennedy years. No wonder, both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel made it in their Top 10 lists, they loved "American Graffitti", they loved "It's a Wonderful Life", how can't they love a film that borrows crucial plot elements to both, and still remain original.And Kathleen Turner is the Capraesque heroine; she plays Peggy Sue with a wonderful mix of childish enthusiasm and adult poignancy. The performance, rightfully Oscar-nominated, is so endearing that any consideration about her looks as a teenager are pointless. Peggy Sue is a woman in her 40's, with two grown-up kids, divorcing from her high school love Charlie (Nicolas Cage). She's victim of an emotional strike that causes her to faint during the 25th celebration of her high school promotion, and suddenly, she wakes up in 1960. She's still the same Peggy Sue but trapped in her teenage body, at a time where everything is possible … again. Is it a dream, a parallel universe, a time loop or a life-changing experience? The film leaves many questions unanswered because it needs to keep a focus on the essential: the relationships. In her mind, she's either dead or dreaming, so she tries to live this 'resurrection' to the fullest, starting with her family: she's thrilled to see her parents or to play with Nancy, her sister. She's less enchanted though with her soon-to-be husband Charlie, wannabe singer but future TV actor. The generation gap between Peggy and Charlie inspires one of the film's most memorable moment when she disconcerts him by delivering what he calls a "guy's line". Cage displays a true level of insecurity and vulnerable youth in that particular moment, he almost steals Turner's show, and on her side, she's so great that she doesn't turn her character into a sort of one-dimensional role, sometimes she's even too rude by blaming Charlie in advance for faults he hasn't committed. It's for these kinds of scene that "Peggy Sue Got Married" was probably designed and it had also the intelligence not to avoid the theme of death, with the heart-breaking and powerful moment when she talks to her grandmother in the phone. She knows that's an aspect of her life she can't change, and while she tries sometimes, like when she gives Charlie the lyrics of a Beatles' hit song (a reminiscence of "Back to the Future"'s 'Johnny B. Goode'), she understands very soon that her life is her story, she had kids with Charlie and she misses them. My father often wondered what if he didn't do this or that, I generally suggest him not to ask such questions because maybe if he had succeeded, I wouldn't have existed, and my brothers wouldn't. I guess the wisdom is still to resign to what we have done, to conjugate our lives in the future and not turn it into a bunch of 'would'. It's hard to deal with, but we have no choice, and maybe it's better that we can't, imagine Peggy Sue's spell in the hands of malevolent people. "Peggy Sue Got Married" handles its material with relative intelligence and tenderness. Yet the movie is not without flaws and this comes from a fan of Coppola, some casting choices are much debatable, notably those guided by his fatherly instinct, and a bunch of jokes fall flat. Yes, there is a reason why the film isn't as highly regarded as "Back to the Future" or "Groundhog Day" I guess if it weren't for Kathleen Turner's extraordinary performance, it would have been easily forgotten. But well, if there is one thing we learn from the film it's that what is done is done and we should deal with it and consider the essential, the heart and the message. On that level, "Peggy Sue" is still a charming and heart-warming coming(back)-to-age story conveying an irresistible bittersweet feeling.

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.