In Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married, the
titular character, a middle-aged mother of two, is transported back to her
youth after collapsing on stage at her high-school reunion. She lives a past
tense life in her new present, tackling all the issues that seem important to a
sixteen year old girl in high school with the life-experience of an adult. One
afternoon, her mother asks how her day at school was, and she replies:
"oh, well, it was nice to see everybody again." Then the phone rings,
and Peggy answers to hear the voice of her grandmother, a woman who, in
Peggy's real present of the mid-1980s, would have died a long time ago. As
ready as she was to face boys, cheerleading practice, and the social hierarchy
of high-school, she wasn't expecting this - so she freezes. There's no mention
of Peggy Sue's grandparents before this moment, and the complexion of the film shifts
suddenly from comedy to tragedy. Coppola covers the hallway in shadow, at odds
with the sun-kissed idyll of previous spaces, and introduces a low-key piano
melody. Peggy runs up the stairs, and her mother, bemused, follows after her. She
tells her mother that she dreamt that her grandmother died, which isn't true,
but the real reason would make no sense. "I love her so much," she
says, "and I haven't seen her in so long." The untroubled freedom of
her youth disappears for a moment, painfully reminding her of everything she
has lost. But the unique situation she's in affords her the opportunity to make
it right - and that's what makes Peggy
Sue Got Married so beautiful. It's not a film about reliving the glory days. Rather,
it's about coming to terms with the pains and regrets of her past.
