Moonstruck Reviews

(OK) Soft nice ethnic 'costumbrism' with passion and anti passion. Cher is stunning as Cage in one of his best (then his filomography becomes lousy). Gardenia is excellent

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since it has a decent reputation, I thought I might as well check it out again. Indeed, some people really enjoyed this movie, even the late Roger Ebert really loved it for example but, personally, I failed to see what was so amazing about it. Well, after rewatching the damned thing, I have to admit that it was more enjoyable this time around but only slightly, to be honest. I mean, there is no doubt that Cher gave here a really good performance (rewarding her with an Academy Award was maybe be a stretch though) as she managed to be at the same time really charismatic but also really convincing as an average Italian-American woman from Brooklyn. I had a harder time with Nicolas Cage whose performance was much less subtle but the guy was such a fine actor back then and he slowly won me over. I also enjoyed his speech about the fact that, even though love is a mess, we should pursuit it anyway. Still, they never really convinced me that these 2 characters belonged together. Sure, that Ronny would fall for Loretta, that was understandable but the other way around seemed rather dubious. Eventually, what bothered me the most with this movie was that all the dialogues were supposed to feel genuine but they were in fact basically an endless successions of jokes. Sure, I’ll have to admit that some of it was quite funny but it gave the whole thing such a theatrical fake feeling. Indeed, even though Loretta did feel like a real woman, just like all the characters involved in this movie, this constant obsession to be funny every freaking 5 seconds greatly clashed with their desire to deliver a genuine and believable community. Anyway, to conclude, it is eventually probably a matter of taste and even though I didn’t think it was such a great movie, it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I know what you’re thinking: Cher is an Academy Award winner…for acting. On paper, yes, it does sound fairly odd. After all, Cher is mostly known as a camp-driven diva that embraces her inner drag queen and crafts pop music that only she could make work. Nothing about that screams Serious Actress. But that’s the thing about Cher. Just when you think that you’ve got her figured out, she pulls another trick out of her sleeve and you can’t do much but drop your jaw and applaud in amazement. And what an actress Cher is! Sure, she had made a few films before Moonstruck, but this was the film that proved her outstanding performances in Mask and Silkwood were no fluke.

And, yes, Cher proved that she was a Serious Actress by winning an Oscar for this film – a romantic comedy no less! One could possibly count the amount of times that an actress has won an Oscar for a romantic comedy on one hand. It is no easy feat to win one of those buggers in general, but twice as hard for a comedic performance. And her performance is quiet, tender, tough and believable. She deglams, well as much as Cher is willing to deglam, which basically consists of letting her grey hairs grow in, adopting a nasal New Yawk accent and wearing ill-fitting and dowdy clothing. When she first appears we think for a minute “Hey, there’s Cher!” and then she starts to go about her character’s business and opens her mouth to talk. And then we think “I like this Loretta, she’s a pistol.” All of this occurs within the first few minutes of the film. And a pistol she is, armed with a sharp wit and tart tongue, she sees everything as it really is and calls everyone out on their bullshit.

And while the movie may be a sweet romantic comedy at its core, there is much bullshit going on between the characters. Without it, we wouldn’t have any driving force to the plot. But the film doesn’t follow just Loretta; we follow the rest of her family members and their romantic entanglements. Her parents marriage, her father’s affair, her aunt and uncle’s long-standing romance, her fiancé, her romantic relationship with his brother, and her mother’s possible affair.

Each of these romances and near-romances are given as much time as needed to completely tell their story. Sometimes we get an entire story in just one scene. Like a wonderful scene between her aunt and uncle. The moon is full and bright, and her aunt and uncle awake from their sleep. They look at each other with love, tenderness and a yearning that can only be described as true love. In an especially sweet moment her aunt tells her uncle, “You know, in that light, with that expression on your face, you look about 25 years old.” And we sense a full life having been lived together, very happily.

There is even the spark of true love between her parents, yes, even in spite of the affair. Her mother, Olympia Dukakis in a performance that shows us where Loretta gets her tart tongue and ability to see through it all, tells her husband that no matter what he does, he’s going to die just like everybody else. It may seem strange, but it’s her way of telling him that she knows about the affair, she wants him to end it, and there’s no sense of keeping up the charade any longer. He looks at her in such a way that you can read everything in his succinct response: “Thank you, Rose.” Her father is played by Vincent Gardenia, and his performance is just as wonderful as the ones delivered by Dukakis and Cher. Dukakis won the Supporting Actress Oscar while Gardenia was nominated but lost to Sean Connery.

But our main relationship is the love triangle between Cher, Nicolas Cage and Danny Aiello. Cage and Aiello are the estranged brothers that Cher is trying to reunite before she marries Aiello. She wants Cage to come to the wedding since it would mean so much to Aiello and to herself. He refuses, very empathically, and tells her that there is no way in hell that they are going to be reunited anytime soon. The chemistry between Cage and Cher starts to spark right there and by the time they wind up in Cage’s apartment, their relationship has been set ablaze. Their torrid and morally questionable romance is the kind of stuff that poetry, great novels and swoon-worthy love lyrics are made of. The kind of transforming meeting that we believe can only happen in the movies.

She dyes her hair, she dresses up, puts on makeup, she outgrows her self-imposed spinsterhood and mourning-widow behavior (she was previously married, but he died in an auto accident years before this story starts). Their romance is equal parts opera (which he favors) and a kind of earthy, spicy New York-Italian charm that is perfectly summarized by Dean Martin constantly playing over the soundtrack.

The way that all of these characters weave in and out is a wonderful testament to the construction of the screenplay. Each given a satisfactory payoff, great lines and full development as rich and textured characters with histories, dreams and goals to accomplish both within the confines of this story and within their larger lives. It never dips into drama, even when dealing with a dying mother in Italy and her parent’s martial troubles, and always remains an immensely hilarious and charming romance. Not just romantic love, but the love that exists within a familial unit. Nor does it ever dip into false sentimentality, although there is a true sweetness and light about it. Moonstruck came out the same year that I was born. I regret that it took me nearly twenty-four-years to finally watch it. I regret that so few romantic comedies forsake the gentleness of this movie in favor of loud, raunchy humor. That they break their characters down into quirks and not people, that all of the harpies masquerading as career women in them must be broken off from thinking/working adults and into cock-hungry dim bulbs. And that they must start life off as shrill harpies full of neurotic tics and no real intelligence or personality. Not that any female character in a romantic comedy has been as smart, tough, or fully-realized as Loretta for quite some time.