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Peggy Sue Got Married

Peggy Sue Got Married title card

Year - 1986
Studio - Tri-Star, Rastar
Stars - Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Helen Hunt, Jim Carey
Director - Francis Ford Coppola
Writing Credits - Jerry Liechtling, Arlene Sarner (screenplay)
Music - John Barry

Synopsis

Peggy Sue Bodell (Kathleen Turner), is separated from her husband, Charlie (Nicholas Cage), who was her high school sweetheart. She attends her high school 25th reunion prom and is selected as the prom Queen. As she reluctantly takes the stage, she collapses into unconsciousness.

When she awakens, she is on the table at a blood donation drive at her high school, twenty five years in the past, in 1960. Still groggy, she tries to grasp the situation, and her classmates assume she is weak from giving blood. She is taken home, where she finds her mother (Barbara Harris), even younger looking than she remembers her, and her younger sister, Nancy (Sofia Coppola), who she embraces emotionally, much to Nancy's surprise.

Peggy Sue Got Married poster

After a night's sleep, Peggy Sue, still finding herself in her past, begins interacting with her parents and peers with the wisdom and knowledge of the 25 years she has since experienced. Knowing how her marriage to Charlie had worked out, she looks at other opportunities that, in her youth, didn't interest her. She has a one-night fling with the school bohemian, Michael Fitzsimmons (Kevin J. O'Connor) who tries to impress her with his beat poetry and Jack Kerouac philosophy. She tells the school nerd/genius, Richard Norvik (Barry Miller) that she has returned from the future, and encourages him to develop products that haven't yet been invented, such as boom box radios and panty hose. Her best friends, Carol (Catherine Hicks) and Maddy (Joan Allen) don't understand Peggy Sue's adult attitudes and accuse her of being immature.

Peggy Sue goes to visit her grandparents (Leon Ames and Margaret O'Sullivan), who had both died. She confesses her situation to them and that she desperately misses her children, and they are sympathetic. The grandfather takes her to his lodge meeting that night, where he and the other members wear bizarre robes and hats. They believe their mystical ceremony can return Peggy Sue to the future. As it begins, thunder and lightning rages outside, and the chamber goes into darkness. When the lights come back on, Peggy Sue has vanished.

But it is Charlie, who has kidnapped her in the dark, and dragged her to a nearby greenhouse. As he tries to convince her of his love, Peggy Sue begins to realize that she does, despite his many flaws, have strong feelings for Charlie.

She falls asleep, then awakens back in 1985 on a hospital bed, with her parents, Charlie, and her daughter Beth (Helen Hunt) at her side. The doctor explains that she had suffered a dangerous cardiac event. The room is filled with flowers and gifts, including a book from the author Michael Fitzsimmons, inscribed to her with thanks for their "starry night" together. Peggy Sue invites Charlie for dinner, at his house and with his children.

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