Thoughts on Peggy Sue Got Married

I hadn’t seen Peggy Sue Got Married, Francis Ford Coppola’s film from 1986, and only loosely knew what it was about (woman in an unhappy marriage time travels back to her high school days), but watched it last month when it came on Hulu, and really liked it a lot. It’s a weird movie that has the nostalgia of a late 1950s teen life (1960, but it might as well still be the 50s), but with this warped dreamlike feeling, and this melancholy and sadness of a middle-aged woman (Kathleen Turner) among her teen friends knowing the future and dreading her future with her high school boyfriend who she would marry into an unfulfilling life. I liked how it feels off-kilter, like if Peggy Sue really is dreaming or if she had time-traveled, and it’s like a teen film but for middle-aged adults.

This happened to come out a year after Back to the Future, with similar themes and setting, and they even dub over Kathleen Turner in one scene to say she’s “come from the future,” when her lips says “back from the future.”

Nicolas Cage, as Peggy Sue’s boyfriend and future husband, makes an inspired choice with his voice in the film, basing it off of Pokey from The Gumby Show, and having this stuffed-up nasal voice which sounds off-putting, but I got used to it. Jim Carrey was fun as Cage’s goofball friend, and I liked seeing Joan Allen in an early role as one of Peggy Sue’s friends. I really liked Barry Miller as the future science genius Richard, he had a lot of sweet sensitivity to his part, and it was cool also seeing Kevin J. O’Connor in an early role as the beatnik poet outsider teen. And it’s a little weird when seeing Sofia Coppola as a kid in acting roles, because she just isn’t an actress, she comes off as stiff onscreen, and clearly found her place as an artist behind the camera, including directing Turner as the Lisbon mother in The Virgin Suicides over a decade later.

Kathleen Turner was great in this, I liked the contrast of her deep husky voice among the “teen” characters to show how much older she is than everyone else, even if they all see her as a teen. I liked her out of place feeling, and her conflicted feelings of not wanting to repeat her marriage while also not wanting to erase her kids from the future. Her emotions at talking to her long-deceased grandparents (especially Maureen O’Sullivan in a cameo) was so touching and real for me.

So I’m glad I watched this, this is a beautiful and melancholy film. I included a video of filmmaker Ti West giving his thoughts, which I concur with.