Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-It Could Happen To You
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	98:52
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Francis Ford Coppola
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Kathleen Turner Nicolas Cage Barry Miller Catherine Hicks Don Murray Barbara Harris Jim Carrey Wil Shriner Maureen O'Sullivan Leon Ames John Carradine Joan Allen Kevin J. O'Connor
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	John Barry

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	Yes, tobacco and other...
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Peggy Sue Got Married is an easy target for criticism. I think the cruellest assessment I've read described it as "Back to the Future with a cheerleader" - that's quite inaccurate, because there's no DeLorean involved, and no mad scientist... Besides, she was a majorette, not a cheerleader!

    Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) is unhappy, and nervous at going to her high school reunion. She persuaded to go by her daughter Beth (a young Helen Hunt). One of the things making her nervous is the idea of showing up at the 25th anniversary of leaving high school without her high school sweetheart Charlie (Nicolas Cage) - they are getting divorced. She is chosen Queen of the reunion, and as she's up on stage being crowned, she collapses. She wakes up, and it's 1960, the year she finished high school. Unsurprisingly, this is a bit of a shock...

    This is an interesting take on an old idea: "If I knew then what I know now...". Peggy Sue in 1960 has the memories of Peggy Sue of 1985, and is determined not to make the same mistakes. She worries a lot of people by reacting in ways they don't understand - I really like her reaction to her father's purchase of an Edsel (if you are too young to know, the Edsel was a famous lemon of a car). Her enthusiasm for singing the national anthem is disconcerting to all her classmates. She gains some interesting insights into the people around her, both people she thought she knew (especially Charlie), and people she didn't (like Michael Fitzsimmons).

    There are many things that rescued this movie from disaster - clever casting, for one: Kathleen Turner is perfect (she earned her Oscar nomination for this), Nicolas Cage is excellent, even Kevin J. O'Connor (in one of his first roles) carries off his role as an angry young man well. And the director was no slouch - he is credited on the movie as Francis Coppola, but the credit on the case inserts the Ford we're used to now.

    I enjoyed this film when it was shown in the cinema, but it has more impact today, when I'm close in age to the people at the reunion. If you are closer in age to the high-schoolers, don't worry - you'll get older, and maybe wiser. Regret is a natural part of aging, and it is captured nicely here. Watching it now I notice things that I didn't then - a definite sign that there's art involved.

    If you're young, you don't have to look for depth in this film - it plays nicely as a lightweight comedy. If you're older, you can relate to it on more than one level - interesting.

Video

    This film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture is rather sharp and fairly clear. There is good shadow detail and no low level noise.

    Colour is rich and deep (especially the deep blue of Charlie's Impala). There is no oversaturation nor any colour bleed.

    There are scenes with a fair amount of film grain, but they don't detract strongly from the picture quality. There are many moments of aliasing (hey, these are 1960s cars, covered in chrome), and occasional moire, but there are no noticeable film artefacts of any kind. There are also no significant MPEG artefacts.

    There are subtitles in lots of languages. I watched the subtitles in English. They are easy to read, well-timed, and quite accurate.

    The disc is single sided (with a picture label that echoes the cover) and single layered. The movie is short enough, and the extras few enough, that this does not require excessive compression. And it means no layer change - that's good.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is available in five languages, but I only listened to the English soundtrack, in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

    The dialogue is clear and readily understood. Audio sync is only a problem in one instance, and that is with a laugh, so it's not troubling.

    John Barry (yup, the Bond composer) is responsible for the score - nice stuff. There are a lot of songs that were popular in 1960 - an excellent way to provide period ambience, and quite apt for 1960s teenagers.

    This is a mono soundtrack - the subwoofer and surround speakers are not given a signal. For a dialogue-driven movie, this is not a problem.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and silent. The background matches the cover.

Trailers 

    There are just two trailers:

• Peggy Sue Got Married (2:07)
• It Could Happen to You (2:15)

    The Region 1 disc is one of those widescreen on one side / fullscreen on the other side discs. If you need a fullscreen version, then it is available in R1. Ours is effectively the widescreen side of their disc, with equivalent video quality. The only other difference is that the R4 has many more languages. You could be happy with either.

    Peggy Sue Got Married is an interesting and entertaining film, given a basic transfer onto DVD.

    The video quality is rather good.

    The audio quality is adequate.

    The extras are barely there.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall