Director: Norman Newison
Writer: John Patrick Shanley
Stars: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis and Danny Aiello
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Index: The First Thirty.
I’ve not only seen Moonstruck, I’ve reviewed it at Apocalypse Later, albeit a long time ago in 2007, but I found that my reaction to it in 2022 was very similar.
The older I get, the less tolerance I find that I have for characters who bicker at each other for no reason but to bicker, that comfortable space where they can unload the frustrations of their lives onto loved ones who aren’t going to punch them back. And, given that this film is about Italian Americans in New York, that’s all it is for a while and it annoyed the crap out of me. That the actors tasked with doing this are very good at it is beside the point.
Our focus is on Loretta Castorini, a frumpy bookkeeper played by Cher, who won an Oscar for her work, and she starts out the picture by accepting a proposal of marriage from Johnny Cammareri, played by reliable Danny Aiello. She doesn’t love him but she’s ready to train him, so much so that she politely talks him all the way through the proposal, needed at every step. When he gets it right, everyone in the restaurant cheers and they’re all set.
Well, Mr. Johnny—everyone calls him that, including Loretta—has one thing to do before the wedding: visit his dying mother in Sicily. At the airport, he gives her a card and asks her to call the number on it. Ask for Ronny. Invite him to the wedding. It’s his younger brother, they haven’t spoken for five years and it’s too long for bad blood.
Because she’s utterly reliable, Loretta takes care of that awkward task and we’re really off and running because, even though the script muses on love through a slew of characters in an ensemble fashion, the central strand is all about Loretta and Ronny. And, as unlikely as it might seem, Cher’s love interest is played by Nicolas Cage. It’s a big leap from Valley Girl.
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