Mystic Pizza (Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor)

(Amazon UK link)

We knew we had watched the film ‘Mystic Pizza’ nearly ten years ago, but neither of us had the faintest recollection of the story, or any of the characters. We wanted something lightweight so it seemed like a good idea to watch it again.

The story is about three very different young women who all work at a pizza parlour in a small American town called Mystic. Kat (Annabeth Gish) is a very likeable character. She’s kind, highly intelligent, and gets along very well with children. She works hard in several jobs, as she’s saving up to go to Yale University.

Kat’s sister Daisy (Julia Roberts) is different in almost every respect. She’s flighty, hot-tempered, and seems to have few, if any ethics. She treats men as disposable commodities, and keeps landing her sister with extra hours at the pizza parlour.

Then there’s JoJo (Lili Taylor), whom we first meet when she’s about to get married to Bill (Vincent D’Onofrio)… until she realises exactly what she is promising. She doesn’t feel ready for quite that level of commitment.

All three grow up a little in the course of this film. Kat falls in love, although she knows she should be careful as the guy is married. Daisy starts dating someone from an entirely different walk of life, and starts to see herself differently. And Jojo has to work out what she really feels about Bill after an argument where he throws some home truths in her face.

Much of the story is set in the pizza parlour, which is presided over by the Italian Leona (Conchata Ferrell). People travel a long way for her pizza, which is made to a secret recipe that she refuses to divulge to anyone.

It’s a well-made light-hearted film, contrasting the three girls quite cleverly. Daisy and Kat inevitably have some arguments, but are fond of each other deep down. There are one or two poignant scenes, and a few places where we chuckled. We both recalled one or two incidents from the film, but nothing much about the storyline, possibly because it’s not particularly deep - three girls have relationships with three guys, with different levels of success.

And yet the whole is quite engaging, and made an excellent light evening’s viewing. While we watched, we could believe in this small town and each person’s problems. The minor characters are fairly typecast, but somehow it doesn’t matter too much. It was made in 1988, so inevitably it’s somewhat dated; but that also isn’t a problem.

Rated 15, which seems about right. There’s a fair amount of bad language, though mostly used in appropriate situations. There’s a lot of talk about sex too; no nudity or explicit bedroom scenes, but plenty of innuendoes and implications.

Recommended in a low-key way to anyone who likes light-hearted rom-com films.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews