“Peggy Sue Got Married,” is a time travel experience that neither she, Peggy Sue, nor I would have wanted to miss. The title alone takes me back to starched hoop petticoats that scratched your legs and made sitting in school a nightmare. A time of wearing pony tails and little scarves around our necks (held down by tiny pins in various shapes. A time when tennis shoes were only worn for tennis and gym classes and were only made of canvas. A time of greasers, high school dances held in the gym, and of course everyone’s goal of going steady. To wear someone’s class ring with angora knitting thread in a color to match a girl’s outfit was the “ultimate” high school status symbol. In fact, the name Peggy Sue was a song of the decade back then.

And, for Peggy Sue (played by Kathleen Turner), a nightmare or at least a knock on the head was the means of transportation to her “second” chance at life. Peggy is in a position to follow through on the often heard expression, “I’d sure do it differently if I knew then what I know now.” BUT, DID SHE????? WOULD YOU?????

One of the last Frontiers of Imagination…TIME TRAVEL

The next couple of paragraphs deal with the concept of time travel rather than the movie itself. This section is an addition of this movie review to align it with the TIME TRAVEL WRITE-OFF that I am participating in. Other people that are involved in the write off are: Matochak, Pretty In Pink, autodidact and Tipu. To review just the movie itself, move down to the paragraph that begins, “So why do I like movies like this one?”

I find, as I grow older, that one of the last truly imaginative places to visit is the concept of Time Travel. I know that many people love to imagine themselves BACK in history or FORWARD into the future.

Many people go to hypnotists to experience the backward movement through time. The regression into lives we’ve experienced before our present life has become an obsession of many people and many psychiatrists. This concept surely makes many traditional or fundamentalists religions uncomfortable. I believe that we must always keep an open mind when examining the possibilities (and the impossibilities). I find it fascinating that so many would want to return to past times of uncomfortable living conditions and wars and pestilence. I do have to note though, that most of these regressions result in the person being regressed being Joan of Arc or King Louis V or someone equally famous. I guess no one talks about regression if they find that they were a peon that lived with dirt floors and who labored 12 hours a day for pennies. Or…maybe only the famous are reincarnated. Or maybe, no one is actually reincarnated.

I personally wouldn’t want to be regressed. When I try to think of someone that I’d want to be (famous), I know how their lives turn out and I don’t want to be them. Not Joan of Arc (I HATE being burned alive), not George Washington (I hate having dental problems), and definitely not Abraham Lincoln because I would not want to be a manic-depressive or be shot.

Thinking of traveling to the future holds more interest for me. What will it REALLY be like? I would love it if obesity has been eradicated; ugliness, disease and war a thing of the past; and if all were guaranteed happiness ever after. But what if, all that is left of us is our brain? If only test tube babies were allowed and no one had the enjoyment of sex anymore? If we had no human contact (so no disease) but were only allowed to sit at a computer to communicate with others? Maybe I wouldn’t enjoy the future all that much either. Remember the Arnold Schwarzenager movie where each time he swore the thought police would give him a ticket? Time travel. The only concept that I find remotely interesting to me is the concept of movement. I would love to be able to set my adapter to take me from one place to another, sort of like in Star Trek. No commuting problems and no delay getting to work on time.

So why do I like movies like this one?

That’s easy to answer. Peggy Sue goes back into her OWN past. Not as someone else, but as herself. That is something that I would love to do. And the emphasis is on reevaluating life choices. The ability to make decisions again after living through the results of the decisions that we’ve made.

Peggy Sue married her high school sweetheart (Nicholas Cage) and after 25 years of marriage, she has decided to divorce him. She’s at a point in her life when she is unhappy about her age, unhappy that her husband had an affair, and wondering how it all failed somehow. This coincides with their 25-year high school reunion. They attend the reunion and she faints as she is crowned “Homecoming Queen.” When she wakes up, it is 1960 and she is once again a high school senior.

There has been a lot of criticism about Turner and Cage and their portrayal of teenagers. I personally liked it played out as adults that others viewed as teenagers. Although she is the only one cognizant of this fact, it would be ludicrous to have her romancing with an actual teenager. Far better to have Cage begin the movie with graying hair that is brown when she plays a teenage/adult opposite his teen character.

The movie’s development depends upon the choices that occur during Peggy Sue’s senior year. But this time through, Peggy Sue is able to take a look at how her decisions impacted not only her, but also those people around her. As a teen, we usually only see how things affect us not others. By returning as an adult, she is able to see the feelings of others too.

This movie is not “heavy” in the traditional sense. While the theme is about Peggy’s life and choices, there is an additional creative theme about traveling back into time. Peggy Sue is in a position to help others create and invent. She introduces the time period to the music of the Beatles (although they don’t clearly understand the music or the profound sound they hear). She introduces the concept of panty hose but no one recognizes the potential. She helps a nerdy guy who later returns at the reunion as a millionaire because of the inventions she had helped him with.

There are also some thought provoking scenes. One is when she answers the telephone and it turns out to be her beloved grandmother who had died right after her graduation. Peggy Sue displays a great talent at expressing the emotions we all would feel if we had one more chance to talk to loved ones that we’ve lost.

I also liked the way she was able to have and complete the “one that got away” romance that most of us experience in our early years. He was a motorcycling poet/author and she (being an adult and not a child this time) gives the passion that she wished she had given the first time they had been together. Being an 80’s woman was much different than being a 60”s teen.

This look back is especially helpful to her in seeing the “Charlie” (Cage) husband and his own hopes and wants concerning the marriage. She begins an understanding of where she may have actually had some blame in the failings of the marriage and with her own unhappiness at the time of the divorce. She starts by thinking that only she has been wronged, but now can see that Charlie had unmet needs and issues too. And then she returns to the present once again.

So, how does it end?

Watching the movie will let you find out how it ends. I do believe that you won’t be disappointed and that you will, by watching the video, experience a vicarious experience of going back in time and rethinking many of your own choices. DID PEGGY SUE MAKE NEW CHOICES????? WOULD YOU????????




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12