Delayed Reaction: Mystic Pizza

Premise: Three young working-class waitresses navigate relationships in their small fishing town over a summer.

 

I'm not sure what I was expecting Mystic Pizza to be, but it wasn't quite this. I mostly know it as an oddly common sitcom reference*. I think Julia Roberts' reputation in the 90s had me expecting more of a traditional RomCom. I also figured Roberts was more of a single lead. Instead, Mystic Pizza is what I sometimes call a RomDramCom. That's my not-so-efficient term for movies that have the cast, look, and premise of a RomCom but are really dramas. Frankly, this has the feel of a Sundance movie from a later era. Once I readjusted my perception of the movie, I really started to dig it.

 

*The two that come to mind are the Mystic Pizza musical that Jenna stars in on 30 Rock and Ron Swanson's description on Parks and Rec of Julia Roberts as "that toothy girl from Mystic Pizza".

 

First of all, it's a great cast. I'm always impressed when small movies manage to get a lot of people who I still recognize now. Obviously, Julia Roberts is the big find here. I forget how much I like Julia Roberts when she's a little nasty. Let that woman swear! It's very clear why this was basically the last moment before she was a star. The movie also has Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor, and Vincent "Phillip" D'Onofrio. That's pretty good for 1988. It's a stark reminder of how long Conchata Ferrell has been around. She was already in her 40s when she made this movie. I guess I didn't realize she was 60 when she started on Two and a Half Men. Weirdly, she's held up really well over the years.

 

I was a little confused by the fact that the three women were supposed to be from a Portuguese family. I suppose I'm not used to that being an ethnicity that I ever think about. Are Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, or Annabeth Gish of Portuguese descent? Is that an ethnicity that I should be upset if they whitewash? Like, a Scot playing a Swede is fine. Can a German play Portuguese? I honestly don't know. I was thrown off by the scene with Julia Roberts' rich boyfriend's family. I think they used a "those people" and it threw me when I realized they meant Portuguese and not poor people. Seriously, this aspect of the movie really threw me.

This movie probably came to me a little too late in life. The cast almost works against it now. Instead of looking at them as talented young actors, I'm thinking about them as "a young Julia Roberts or Vincent D'Onofrio". They aren't a discovery. They are an early look of an established thing. It would've been a lot of fun to see this movie when it first came out then excitedly see the cast all go on to better things. I imagine it's like how I feel about Emma Stone. I've been on the Emma Stone bandwagon since Superbad, not Easy A or one of her Oscar movies. I don't think I'd feel the same way if I saw her in La La Land first then went back to Superbad or Zombieland.

 

Anyway, Mystic Pizza: It's a fun summer coming of age movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend