Peggy Sue Got Married Information

Peggy Sue Got Married is a 1986 American comedy-drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Kathleen Turner as a woman on the verge of a divorce, who finds herself transported back to the days of her senior year in high school. The film was written by husband and wife team Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actress (Turner), Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design. In addition, Turner was nominated for Best Foreign Actress at the Premis Sant Jordi de Cinema.

The fame of co-stars like Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, Catherine Hicks and Sofia Coppola rose considerably in the years after this film.

Plot

Peggy Sue Bodell (Kathleen Turner) sets off for her 25-year high school reunion, albeit hesitantly, with her daughter, Beth (Helen Hunt), coming along as company. Peggy Sue has just separated from her former high school sweetheart, now husband, Charlie (Nicolas Cage), and is wary of attending the reunion because of everyone questioning her about the absence of Charlie; they have been married since she became pregnant at the end of high school.

Peggy Sue arrives at the reunion and is happy to reconnect with her old friends, Maddy (Joan Allen) and Carol (Catherine Hicks), and all start to comment on old high school memories and how times (and classmates) have changed. Charlie unexpectedly arrives at the reunion, causing an awkward scene with Peggy Sue ignoring him. The awkwardness is ended when the event MC announces the reunion's "king and queen." The king is Richard Norvik (Barry Miller), a former class geek turned multi-millionaire computer whiz. Peggy Sue is named the queen, but on arriving at the stage, she faints.

When Peggy Sue awakens, she finds she's gone back to the spring of 1960, her senior year of high school, having passed out after donating blood. Peggy at first believes she died at the reunion, but then comes to accept that she has gone back in time. She's in shock to see old family members so young and to talk to relatives who have since died. She attends high school classes and meets with old (now-young) friends as well as their now-young boyfriends (Jim Carrey in one of his earliest roles is among them). Peggy answers simple questions with adult responses. For example, when her mother asks if she and Charlie had a fight, she replies yes"?but about "house payments," talking about their future divorce. She also makes a get-rich-quick reference of going to England to discover The Beatles.

Peggy is confused by this new/old world, but she's fascinated to get to live high school all over again and say things she always wanted to say (such as telling off rude girls and informing an algebra teacher she knows, for a fact, that she will never need algebra in her life). She uses this opportunity to repair an estranged relationship with her younger sister, Nancy (Sofia Coppola). One thing Peggy is not happy about is that she's still dating Charlie. One night, when Peggy suggests to Charlie that they have sex in his car, Charlie gets upset and kicks her out. As she heads down the sidewalk, she sees Michael Fitzsimmons (Kevin J. O'Connor)"?the guy in school she always wished she'd slept with - in a diner and goes in to talk to him. They end up spending the night together.

Peggy Sue soon sees that this Charlie (at 18 years) is not the same as the adulterous Charlie she left in 1985 and Peggy starts to fall in love with him all over again, though the relationship still has its problems. Meanwhile, she contacts the young (ever geeky) Richard and asks for his advice on time travel. He seems to believe her as they discuss events and inventions that do not yet exist. Her inquiries into time travel lead to her grandfather, who agrees to try a strange séance ritual with his Masonic Lodge buddies to send her forward in time.

Peggy is kidnapped by Charlie. He takes her to a greenhouse, while everybody at the Lodge thinks the ritual worked. He proposes to Peggy Sue and gives her the locket she wore at the beginning of the film. After declaring she would have to be a fool to marry him twice, she looks inside the locket which has baby pictures of her and Charlie, which resemble their children. Peggy Sue kisses Charlie and they begin to make love, which would again lead to Peggy getting pregnant and marrying him. In the next moment, Peggy Sue is transported back to present day.

Peggy Sue wakes up in a hospital, with Charlie at her side. However, the idea that she may have dreamed the entire ordeal is called into doubt when she sees that Michael has dedicated a book to her and their night together. Charlie, meanwhile, is deeply regretful of his adultery and tells Peggy Sue he wants her back. It seems there's hope for them possibly reconciling their differences when Peggy Sue looks at Charlie with new eyes and (citing a reference from her grandfather who claimed that her grandmother's strudel kept the family together) says, "I'd like to invite you over to your house for dinner on Sunday, with your kids. I'll make a strudel."

Cast

• Kathleen Turner as Peggy Sue Bodell
• Nicolas Cage as Charlie Bodell
• Barry Miller as Richard Norvik
• Catherine Hicks as Carol Heath
• Joan Allen as Maddy Nagle
• Kevin J. O'Connor as Michael Fitzsimmons
• Jim Carrey as Walter Getz
• Lisa Jane Persky as Delores Dodge
• Lucinda Jenney as Rosalie Testa
• Wil Shriner as Arthur Nagle
• Barbara Harris as Evelyn Kelcher
• Don Murray as Jack Kelcher
• Sofia Coppola as Nancy Kelcher
• Maureen O'Sullivan as Elizabeth Alvorg
• Leon Ames as Barney Alvorg
• Helen Hunt as Beth Bodell
• Glenn Withrow as Terry
• Marshall Crenshaw as Musician at the reunion

Production

Nicolas Cage based Charlie's unusual voice on Pokey from The Gumby Show. He said Coppola (his uncle) and the studio were unhappy with his voice and almost fired him.

Release and reception

Peggy Sue Got Married opened with $6,942,408 and ended up grossing $41,382,841 in the U.S. It was the first box-office success for Coppola since Apocalypse Now.

Peggy Sue Got Married ranked number 17 on Entertainment Weeklys list of "50 Best High School Movies".

This film appeared on Siskel and Ebert's best of 1986 lists.

American Film Institute lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs " Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 " Nominated Fantasy Film

Musical adaptation

See Peggy Sue Got Married (musical) for more information The film was adapted by Leichtling and Sarner into a full-length musical theater production which opened in London's West End theatre district in 2001. Despite receiving solid reviews, and a several million pound advance, 9/11 forced the show to close early.