Peggy Sue Got Married

For the Buddy Holly song, see Peggy Sue Got Married (song).

Peggy Sue Got Married
File:Peggy sue got married.jpg
Directed by	Francis Ford Coppola
Written by	Jerry Leichtling Arlene Sarner
Produced by	Paul R. Gurian
Starring	Kathleen Turner Nicolas Cage Don Murray Barbara Harris Joan Allen Jim Carrey Maureen O'Sullivan Sophia Coppola
Cinematography	Jordan Cronenweth
Edited by	Barry Malkin
Music by	John Barry
Production company	American Zoetrope
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	October 10, 1986
Running time	104 min
Country	Template:FilmUS language = English budget = $18,000,000 gross = $41,382,841

Peggy Sue Got Married is a 1986 American comedy-drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and 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.

The film 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 Premis Sant Jordi de Cinema.

The fame of co-stars like Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, and Sofia Coppola rose considerably in the years after this film.

Plot

Peggy Sue Bodell (Kathleen Turner) sets off for her 25-year high school reunion, albeit hesitantly, with her daughter, Beth (Helen Hunt), coming along as company. Peggy Sue has just separated from her former high school sweetheart, now husband, Charlie (Nicolas Cage), and is wary of attending the reunion because of everyone questioning her about the absence of Charlie; they have been married since she became pregnant at the end of high school.

Peggy Sue arrives at the reunion and is happy to reconnect with her old friends, Maddy (Joan Allen) and Carol (Catherine Hicks), and all start to comment on old high school memories and how times (and classmates) have changed. 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 (Barry Miller), a former class geek turned multi-millionaire computer whiz. Peggy Sue is named the queen, but on arriving at the stage, she faints.

When Peggy Sue awakens, she finds she’s gone back to the spring of 1960, her senior year of high school, having passed out after donating blood. Peggy at first believes she died at the reunion, but then comes to accept that she has gone back in time. She’s in shock to see old family members so young and to talk to relatives who have since died. She attends high school classes and meets with old (now-young) friends as well as their now-young boyfriends (Jim Carrey in one of his earliest roles is among them). Peggy answers simple questions with adult responses. For example, when her mother asks if she and Charlie had a fight, she replies yes - but about "house payments," talking about their future divorce. She also makes a get-rich-quick reference of going to England to discover The Beatles.

Peggy is confused by this new/old world, but she’s fascinated to get to live high school all over again and say things she always wanted to say (such as telling off rude girls and informing an algebra teacher she knows, for a fact, that she will never need algebra in her life). She uses this opportunity to repair an estranged relationship with her younger sister, Nancy (Sofia Coppola). One thing Peggy is not happy about is that she’s still dating Charlie. She breaks up with him and has a one-night stand with Michael Fitzsimmons (Kevin J. O'Connor) — the guy in school she always wished she’d slept with.

Peggy Sue soon sees that this Charlie (at 18 years) is not the same as the adulterous Charlie she left in 1985 - and Peggy starts to fall in love with him all over again, though the relationship still has its problems. Meanwhile, she contacts the young (ever geeky) Richard and asks for his advice on time travel. Her inquiries into time travel lead to her grandfather, who agrees to try a strange séance ritual with buddies to send her forward in time.

Peggy is kidnapped by Charlie. He takes her to a greenhouse of sorts, while everybody at the lodge thinks the ritual worked. He tells Peggy Sue that he loves her and gives her the locket she wore at the beginning of the film. Realizing that she cannot cheat fate, Peggy Sue kisses Charlie and they begin to make love, which would again lead to Peggy getting pregnant and marrying him. In the next moment, Peggy Sue is transported back to present day.

Peggy Sue wakes up in a hospital, with Charlie at her side. However, the idea that she may have dreamed the entire ordeal is called into doubt when she sees that Michael has dedicated a book to her and their night together. Charlie, meanwhile, is deeply regretful of his adultery and tells Peggy Sue he wants her back. She then looks at Charlie with new eyes and it seems there's hope for them possibly reconciling their differences.

Cast

• Kathleen Turner as Peggy Sue Bodell
• Nicolas Cage as Charlie Bodell
• Barry Miller as Richard Norvik
• Catherine Hicks as Carol Heath
• Joan Allen as Maddy Nagle
• Kevin J. O'Connor as Michael Fitzsimmons
• Jim Carrey as Walter Getz
• Lisa Jane Persky as Delores Dodge
• Lucinda Jenney as Rosalie Testa
• Wil Shriner as Arthur Nagle
• Barbara Harris as Evelyn Kelcher
• Don Murray as Jack Kelcher
• Sofia Coppola as Nancy Kelcher
• Maureen O'Sullivan as Elizabeth Alvorg
• Helen Hunt as Beth Bodell
• Glenn Withrow as Terry

Production

In his February 15, 2007 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Nicolas Cage stated that he based Charlie's unusual voice on Pokey from The Gumby Show. He said Coppola (his uncle) and the studio were unhappy with his voice and almost fired him.

The character of Rosalie (Lucinda Jenney), a classmate of Peggy Sue's, appears in a wheelchair at the 1985 reunion, but seemingly does not have a 1960 counterpart (although she can be seen in several shots during Maddy's party when Charlie and his group are performing). In the original script, Rosalie was a gymnast who was injured in an accident that put her in the wheelchair. One of Peggy Sue's goals in 1960 was to help prevent that accident. This was based on a high-school friend of writer Jerry Leichtling, Larry Solomon, who was a promising gymnast crippled in an accident. Because of how the movie was edited, this created a loose end in the final cut that was never explained.

The original choice for Peggy Sue had been Debra Winger. The original director was Penny Marshall. However, the writers felt that Marshall was turning their partly serious work into "Laverne and Shirley Go to High School", and so Coppola was hired. By the time he was available, Winger was not. So the producers chose Turner. She was busy working on another project, "The Jewel of the Nile", causing this film to be further delayed. All told, Peggy Sue Got Married took almost two years to complete.

Release and reception

Peggy Sue Got Married 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.

Peggy Sue Got Married ranked number 17 on Entertainment Weekly's list of "50 Best High School Movies."

Title song

The title song, played over the opening credits, is a Buddy Holly sequel to "Peggy Sue". It is unusual because it is the rarely-heard original version recorded by Holly in his New York City apartment, accompanied only by his own guitar, essentially a demo or practice tape. The version normally heard was overdubbed for commercial posthumous release, adding background vocals and an electric guitar track that drowned out Holly's own playing.

Musical adaptation

Main article: Peggy Sue Got Married (musical)

The film was adapted into a full-length musical theater production which opened in London's West End theater district in 2001. Despite receiving solid reviews, the production closed before the end of the year.

External links

• Peggy Sue Got Married at IMDb
• Peggy Sue Got Married at AllMovie