A gem, in that there’s really no other movie like it. A mixture of camp, parody, and full-throated sincerity, Moonstruck ultimately coalesces into a romantic comedy that’s tonally aberrant yet emotionally coherent. Cher won an Oscar for her sharply comic turn as Loretta Catorini, a feisty, wounded widow about to settle into an uninspired marriage with an older man (Danny Aiello) until she meets his tortured younger brother (Nicolas Cage). Closely watching this drama unfold is her mother (Olympia Dukakis) and father (Vincent Gardenia), who are having marital issues of their own. (Everyone is ostensibly “Italian,” in the Disney Epcot understanding of the term.) Despite the caricature and broad strokes of John Patrick Shanley’s Oscar-winning screenplay, director Norman Jewison and his cast work some sort of irresistible magic, elevating sitcom shtick to the level of Shakespearean comedy. And then, in the midst of it, you have Cage doing Shakespearean tragedy as Ronny Cammareri, whose feud with his brother is rooted in the fact that he was distracted while talking to him, cut off his fingers in a bread slicer, and was dumped by the woman he loved as a result. That’s the sort of silly plotting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Cage plays it like he’s Hamlet. And here’s another Moonstruck miracle: it works. Roaring with retributive fury, literally sweeping Loretta off her feet less than an hour after meeting her, and pledging love at first sight while batting “those bad eyes, like a gypsy,” in Loretta’s words, Ronny leaves her (and us) shocked, shaken, and smitten. It’s a performance of odd choices (many of which ostentatiously involve Ronny’s wooden prosthetic fingers) that could only make sense in the open-hearted, earnest world that is Moonstruck.
(2/26/2022)
