Romancefest 2011: Moonstruck

MOONSTRUCK is one of those movies I'm sure I've seen, but I must have been 7 years old, or something, because it seemed brand new to me as I watched it today.

Cher stars as a 30-something widow from an Italian-American family. As the movie opens, she gets a lackluster proposal from her bumbling but well-meaning suitor (Danny Aiello). She says yes. Why, we wonder? Later she explains, "The right man never came along." So, better to end up with someone than no one, I guess.

Cher lives at home in Brooklyn with her mom, dad and grandfather, and her mother (Olympia Dukakis) asks if she's in love with Aiello's character. Cher says no. I'm paraphrasing, but Dukakis replies, "Good. The ones you love drive you crazy." But Cher does admit she likes the guy.

Soon Aeillo returns to Sicily to be at the bedside of his dying mother, and asks Cher to make amends with his estranged brother while he's gone by inviting him to the wedding. Aeillo's brother is a passionate, bitter, wild-eyed, opera loving baker played by Nicolas Cage. One second Cher and Cage are screaming at each other. The next minute, they're in bed together.

This is a movie full of extremes but the movie itself is not extreme -- on one hand, the characters are loud and passionate. On the other, they're no-nonsense. The movie allows the characters to be crazy, but never gets crazy itself. The plot involves several affairs, betrayals, reconciliations, grudges and various pairings of all of the main characters, but never relies on contrived misunderstandings and never gets too convoluted. When the plot pays off in the final scenes, it's not a desperate attempt to jockey all of the characters into the right place at the right time. It just unfolds organically to its logical conclusion, and even the characters who don't really get what they want have to admit it all kinda makes sense.

Above all, the characters are fundamentally good people. There are no villains to fulfill any plot requirements, and even though these characters may hurt each other in one way or another, they never stay mad. They're in a constant state of exasperation and agitation, sure. But they're never really seriously pissed off or full of hate.

The performances are all great -- despite her mega-star status, Cher is totally convincing as a somewhat cynical, graying widow. Cage is so eccentric and unhinged that it's impossible not to admire him, here playing a character who is so in love with the drama and tragedy of operas that he lives his life like he's starring in one -- his enthusiasm, for better or worse, is infectious, and you can understand why Cher would fall for him. Aiello, as the jilted fiance, plays what could have been the total douche bag role in a lesser movie, but he's miraculously still likable and is even afforded some words of wisdom. The two older couples -- the afore mentioned Dukakis and Vincent Gardenia as Cher's parents and Julie Bovasso and Louis Guss as Cher's aunt and uncle -- get some great screen time and are not relegated to stereotype status. Dukakis, in particular, has some great moments and is able to project a calm and somewhat tired form of wisdom as she struggles to make sense of her husband's ways. This is a movie so full of three dimensional characters that even the waiters and customers at the Italian restaurant seem like they have their own lives.

The movie is so busy with notions of romance and passion that a more subtle theme quietly slips by almost unnoticed until the last few scenes, when Cher says, "I need my family around me." This is a great romantic comedy, but it's also about the power and understanding of family that allows you to be yourself, speak your mind, argue bitterly, and no matter how crazy things get, you never use up all that love.