Moonstruck (1987)

Directed by Norman Jewison. Starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, John Mahoney, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Louis Guss, Julia Bovasso, Anita Gillette, Nada Despotovich. [PG]

Italian-American widow (Cher)—in her late-30s, “unlucky” in love, and content to settle—agrees to marry muttonhead Aiello, but then falls for his wild, passionate younger brother (Cage). Unabashedly romantic and good-natured comedy has fine performances (Cher and Dukakis both won Academy Awards), the occasional memorable line or well-constructed vignette, and a sweetly infectious cornball spirit, but there’s precious little originality and it doesn’t add up to much. Nearly every character is pitched at the level of true-eccentric (if not outright caricature), which makes the experience exhausting before long—the phrase “shrill ethnic comedy” comes to mind at times. The abrasively “cutesy” tone calms down in the second half, but much of the humor disappears with it; small, patient scenes work best, like the one between Dukakis and Mahoney walking home from a restaurant or with Guss and Bovasso admiring the moon, though Cage’s unbridled outbursts in the bakery scene are also quite memorable. John Patrick Shanley’s uneven script also won an Oscar, the same year that The Princess Bride went un-nominated—inconceivable, indeed.

63/100