Mystic Pizza

Hree young women working in a pizza place experience love, heartbreak, and growing pains in Mystic Pizza from 1988.

The film is loaded with young actors just starting out: Julia Robert's, Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor, Vincent D'onofrio, Matt Damon, Adam Storke, and William R. Moses.

The film begins with the wedding of Jojo and Bill (Taylor and D'Onofrio). The minister describes marriage as being permanent; otherwise, you burn in the fires of hell. Jojo faints. The wedding is off.

Daisy (Roberts) has a dalliance with a wealthy young man (Storke); Kat falls for a married man (Moses) when she babysits his daughter.

The location is Mystic, Connecticut, and it is very reminiscent tourist towns on Cape Cod, where I worked. Additionally, as in Plymouth Mass where I worked, there is a large Portuguese population. The owner (Conchata Ferrell) of the pizza parlor is Portuguese, and her pizza recipe is a secret.

Good acting all around, an entertaining film, and fun to see these young actors, all of whom went on to varying degrees of success.

I have always thought Mystic Pizza was a very good, light hearted film. It's extremely well acted, the script is solid and witty, the cinematography is just heavenly (those Autumn colours are sensational!), and the story itself is heart warning and poignant. There comes a time in every young person's life when they have to figure out which direction they want to head, how they are going to get there and whether or not they will stay in the environment that reared them or branch out, beginning a new life. However, despite the uncertainty that plagues teens and twenty-somethings, there is one universal bond that will seal all cracks and that is friendship, which is the core of Mystic Pizza.

This unbreakable duo of friends consists of a then unknown, yet incredibly very striking Julia Roberts. She gives a bright, charismatic performance as the wayward and confused Daisy. Her care free nature is a strong contrast to the level headed, smart and introverted Kat, played by the absolutely gorgeous Annabeth Gish. Last, but certainly not least, is the tempestuous and indecisive Jojo. There's also the men in their lives, the handsome upper-class WASP Charles, who is a little bit of a snob, the unavailable dad Tim (William R. Moses) who has his wandering eyes set on the sensitive, intellectual Kat and Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio), the long suffering husband-to-be of Jojo. The wonderful thing about this film is it never judges its female characters for their promiscuity, nor does it reduce them to crowd-appeasing stereotypes when it depicts their uncertainty or reluctance in picking a "suitable" partner, nor does it imply that they really need one. See the resolution of Kat's brief fling with the father of the girl she babysits. They don't run off, living happily ever after, and Kat, clearly changed by the event, doesn't fall into the lap of the next man who shows her attention. Genre clichés are nicely avoided and what's important here, ultimately, is friendship not love or a man.

Mystic Pizza is definitely one of the better coming-of-age, small town friendship films, worthy of a lot more than the fairly dismal 6.1/10 rating it currently has.

Pizza, that delicious Italian dish has been adapted by people all over the world into their own way to express their interpretation about the way it should taste. It's not surprising that in Mystic, Ct., where there's a large Portuguese population, Leona, the owner of the Mystic Pizza restaurant has created a concoction that is admired by everyone. Don't ask her to reveal her ingredients because she will not tell you.

Daniel Petrie, the director, takes us along for a ride to this coastal town in which Amy Jones' story is set. We meet the three friends that work in the restaurant, Jojo, Daisy and Kat; the last two are sisters. Jojo is intense, but has a problem accepting the fact that Bill, her fiancé, wants to formalize their engagement. In the opening scenes we watch as Jojo faints in the church where she is marrying Bill. Panic strikes and she jilts him.

Daisy, is a beautiful girl who appears to be grounded. When Charlie, the preppy guy finds her at a local bar, it seems he is quite taken by her. Daisy, who should have known better embarks in a love affair with this young which one realizes is doomed from the start. Not only are they from two different worlds, but romances like these are just a passing fancy for wealthy boys. So is the involvement with the wise and intelligent Kat with Tim, the young father with a child who needs a sitter. Kat will be hurt in thinking Tim will want her over the absent wife.

"Mystic Pizza" is about the friendship of the three local girls and their way of looking at life from different angles. Annabeth Gish makes a great appearance in the film with her Kat. Lili Taylor is also good as Jojo. This was a film that presented Julia Roberts that hinted at her success as a movie actress. The rest of the cast plays well in the film. Vincent D'Onofrio, William Moses, Adam Storker and Conchata Farrell do good work under Mr. Petrie's direction. Seen in a small role that if one blinks, one would miss him, is Matt Damon making his first screen appearance.

Simply put, it is easy to get into this movie. The characters are diverse, and each has the chance to tell her part of the story, so there is plenty for the audience to relate to. It is very refreshing that the characters have individual values and standards, as opposed to many more recent movies who assign characters generic standards of conduct, and it gives the characters and the film depth. Each of the girls has these standards challenged, making it a rich coming-of-age story. The film is not about the ending, but rather about every moment of the girls' lives that the viewer is there to see. It is worth the extra bit of concentration that it takes to untangle all of the different plot lines.

Incidentally, Mystic Pizza is a real pizzeria and much of the filming was done on location, so if you find yourself vacationing in the area, you can stop by and pick up one of the trademark t-shirts that the girls wear in the movie, and of course taste some of the famous fare. The home-grown feeling of the restaurant in the movie is part of the fun, and it's even more fun to see it in person.

This was one of THE slumber party movies when I was in high school, and fourteen years later I still enjoy it. Of course now I realize what a jerk the married man is from the first time he looks THAT WAY at Kat, and I'm a little surprised (although I married young myself) to see young marriage portrayed positively in a major motion picture. It's also refreshing to see Julia Roberts before she acquired the required Hollywood Superstar Anorexic Look.

Some of the scenes that make me laugh as much now as they did when I was 15: The Porsche full of fish, and JoJo's parents' and boyfriend's reaction when JoJo and Bill are caught in a compromising position. This film has some very tender moments as well. A warning, however: the last line will probably make you groan.

It's not terribly deep, and it's not going to win the Palme D'Or. But it's well worth putting in the VCR on a quiet evening when your husband's out or your girlfriends are over.