80's Movie Review: Moonstruck

Every time I see a full moon large and low in the sky, that's the quote that never fails to come to mind. The romantic power of the full moon works its magic over the eccentric and marvelously real characters in Norman Jewison's 1987 hit Moonstruck, and it becomes impossible afterwards to see a clear night sky and not feel an urge to let out a joyous howl like Feodor Chaliapin's Old Man egging on his pack of dogs.

There's a little bit of lunatic in every one of screenwriter John Patrick Shanley's cast of characters, though perhaps none quite so much as Loretta Castorini (Cher) and Ronny Cammareri (Nicholas Cage). As the lead couple in this romantic comedy, they are compelling precisely because they are so unlikely, so bullheaded, so crazy that they could be meant for no one but each other. Loretta, a sharp-tongued Italian American Brooklynite widow in her late thirties, starts the movie getting engaged-to Ronny's brother Johnny (Danny Aiello), a fumbling, unthreatening mama's boy who's as nice as a bowl of vanilla pudding (and about as strong-willed). She meets estranged brother Ronny when her fiancé, en route to Palermo to visit his dying mother, begs Loretta to convince Ronny to attend the wedding.

Instead, she and Ronny fight passionately, and then make up-just as passionately.

This main plotline, tracing the operatic (quite literally, underscored by Puccini's La Boheme) and almost violent courtship of the two ferociously strong-willed lovers, would have made for a refreshing romantic comedy in and of itself. In how many such movies does the hero's confession of love earn him a hard slap in the face as his beloved retorts, "Snap out of it"? They are funny and charming in their deeply flawed lives, unexpectedly endearing in the fragility of two wounded people rediscovering the kind of love neither thought to find again. Those qualities are what make the harsher moments work, as when Ronny finishes his tirade against the myth of storybook love by ordering Loretta to get in his bed.

Yet what elevates Moonstruck to the level of classic is the rest of the cast, woven through the story with their own tales of love rediscovered and betrayed. Anyone who grew up in a large ethnic family or anywhere near one will instantly recognize them in Olympia Dukakis and Vincent Gardenia as Loretta's parents-the unfounded superstitions, the double standards, the pragmatic cynicism that prompts Rose (Dukakis) upon being awakened in the wee hours to exclaim, "Who's dead?" The family interactions between them, Loretta's re-infatuated aunt and uncle, Feodor Chaliapin as her grandfather, and the two Cammereri brothers are some of the brightest gems in the film, with dialogue so sharp and witty that it's endlessly quotable, and yet all of it still somehow sounding like a favorite funny story you'd tell about your own tribe.

The humor is enriched by the poignancy of the characters' yearning and quietly suffered indignities, whether it's Rose's struggle to make sense of her husband's infidelity, the pathological loneliness of the skirt-chasing professor (John Mahoney) she briefly befriends, or even Cosmo's (Gardenia) constant need to talk himself up to his dim-witted mistress. It is this theme of damaged people struggling to make sense of the world that makes the ordinary enchantments of the full moon upon them seem truly magical. Loretta's makeover scene prior to the opera is no different on the surface than the many other times this trope shows up in romantic comedy, and yet it makes palpable her hope, her vulnerability, her tentative try at becoming the woman she truly wants to be.

Much like the opera that forms a recurring motif, Moonstruck is a movie that can be watched over and over again with no less joy for knowing the ending. It is by turns hilarious, touching, startling, sad, whimsical, and of course, breathtakingly romantic. We might not want to live their lives, but we can get lost every time in the magic of their stories.

Cher and Olympia Dukakis each won an Oscar and a Golden Globe that year for their roles, and a third Oscar went to Shanley for Best Original Screenplay, with three more Oscar nominations including Best Picture. It has been named among AFI's top 10 romantic comedies, and it was the fifth highest grossing film of 1987.

Whether you're in the mood for a date movie with a rapier wit and a soulful romance, or a classic comedy to enjoy with friends (or your sprawling ethnic family!), you'll be over the moon for Moonstruck.

Sources:

"AFI's 10 Top 10: Top 10 Romantic Comedies", The American Film Institute
"Top Grossing Movies for 1987 in the USA", IMDB

Where to find it:

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