[9]
In New York City’s Little Italy, a widowed bookkeeper named Loretta (Cher) accepts a marriage proposal from a man she likes, but doesn’t love (Danny Aiello). Before her fiancée heads out of town to tend to his ailing mother, he asks Loretta to find his estranged brother (Nicolas Cage) and invite him to the wedding. But when she meets the sibling, the two fall instantly and passionately in love. While Loretta struggles with her infidelity, she learns her father (Vincent Gardenia) is cheating on her mother (Olympia Dukakis). All the family’s secrets are aired out during a climactic dinner scene when Aiello’s character returns home.
Moonstruck is an incredibly funny and charming film, anchored by one of the freshest original screenplays of its era and elevated by a bounty of endearing performances. The film opens with footage of an opera company setting up for a production of La bohème, telling us right off the bat that the story we’re about to experience is a somewhat exaggerated one. The characters are larger-than-life, but not so much that we can’t see ourselves in them. Cher picked up the Best Actress Oscar for her role, one of a woman daring to embrace passion after nearly ‘settling’. Olympia Dukakis won the Supporting Actress award as her stoic, sardonic mother, a woman who finds the quiet strength to steer her family back on track without ever breaking into tears. Nicolas Cage’s performance is perhaps the most ‘stylized’ — but he’s very funny and unforgettable, the right kind of personality to galvanize Cher’s character into changing her life’s course.
Writer John Patrick Shanley and director Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night) fill Moonstruck with many more quirky characters assigned to pitch-perfect actors, including John Mahoney, Julie Bavasso, and Louis Guss. Characters who only appear in one scene, or only have one line of dialogue, somehow stick in our memory. The cumulative effect of all these colorful personalities is a potent one. Their attitudes toward family, grace, and forgiveness are inspiring. Moonstruck is a great romantic comedy, a genre that rarely delivers greatness. It can almost make a cynic believe in love again.
Academy Awards: Best Actress (Cher), Supporting Actress (Olympia Dukakis), Original Screenplay (John Patrick Shanley)
Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Vincent Gardenia)