Summer of Cher: Moonstruck

JOHNNY HAS HIS HAND! JOHNNY HAS HIS BRIDE!

Picture it: I’m cracking my knuckles. I’m taking a big sip of my blueberry matcha. I’m inhaling deeply and getting ready, because this is it. It’s time. We’re discussing Moonstruck.

This is the fourth film in our Summer of Cher and while I’m not sure this is her best performance (she’s been great in everything, and different in everything…we love a queen with range), it’s certainly her biggest performance. I’d say it’s her star-making performance, if Cher wasn’t already a star. It’s the role that won her an Oscar.¹ It’s the quintessential Cher role, and on this, the third time I’ve watched the film, it’s easy to see why. She’s luminous, lighting up the screen with that husky voice and je nais sais Cher. No one else could play this role. No one else could play Nic Cage’s role, either, but we’ll get to that soon. First, let’s set things up.

So Cher is Italian. Okay! One thing about Cher: she can play any identity. She basically wrote a song about it. She lives in the most wonderful place, which is New York in the 1980s. To misquote Rosie O’Donnell, “You don’t want to live in New York. You want to live in New York of the 1980s in the movies.” There is no more beautiful fantasy land than the city in a 1980s love story (see also: Crossing Delancey). She lives in a giant, gorgeous house with her whole family. Her mom is Olympia Dukakis (anyone can be Italian in the movies) and her dad made me laugh out loud multiple times with his line delivery. She was once married but her husband got hit by a bus, and now she’s about to marry a guy named Johnny Cammareri. Johnny Cammareri is very funny, but Cher does not love him. But she’s fine with that! She just wants to get married again and have better luck this time (by not having her husband get hit by a bus).

However, we know instantly that Johnny Cammareri is not the guy for Cher because she has to tell him how to propose to her in the Italian restaurant (he doesn’t even get down on his knees until she tells him to!). And then he’s like, “Well, I have to go visit my dying mother in Sicily and we can’t get married until she’s dead. Hey, can you call my estranged brother Ronny and invite him to the wedding?” Sir, this is so much emotional labor to foist on Cher and she’s not even your wife yet.

So Cher finds Ronny at the Cammareri Brothers bakery and…well…things don’t go great. Because Ronny is NICOLAS CAGE and he’s UNHINGED! Observe:

This is the perfect meet cute, if you ask me. I love everything about this scene. The way the girl yells “I TELL YA I WON’T DO IT!” when he’s asking for “the big knife.” The way he says “I ain’t no freakin’ monument to justice!” The way he derisively calls Cher “sweetie.” The way he knocks that flour over, thereby making more work for himself. The way everyone who works there is like, “uhhh….” when he’s done. The way he’s CLEARLY done this before. And, most importantly, the greatest lines in the history of cinema, which are: “I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!”

I showed my son this scene and he has those lines down. It really confused Hollis when he was shouting them around the house. But I do think it’s important for children to learn at least one Nicolas Cage monologue while they’re young, and if they don’t hear about Moonstruck at home, they’ll hear about it on the streets.

Cher is barely worried about this, even though Ronny just literally threatened to kill himself with the aforementioned “big knife.” She follows him when he slinks off, all his energy spent on that killer monologue. She ends up coming to his place and angrily making him a steak. To his credit, he says it’s good even though he’s surly about it (we should all be so lucky as to have Cher make us a steak). They yell at each other a lot and Cher is basically like, “Please stop feeling so sorry for yourself, I know you’re holding a grudge against my fiance because you mangled your hand in a slicer but actually you’re the root cause of your unhappiness” because she’s moonlighting as a therapist for this man she just met, I guess.

And do you want to know what Ronny does? He looks at her with those wild Nic Cage eyes, knocks over the table, and kisses her. He! Knocks! Over! A! Table! Today’s romances could never. Point me to one single romantic comedy made in the last ten (fifteen?) years that has even one-tenth of the raw sexual chemistry that Cher and Nicolas Cage share in this scene. I haven’t seen someone so desperate to touch a woman since William Hurt broke a window just to have sex with Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. That relationship didn’t go well, but at least it started with a desperate man. Make Men Desperate in Cinema Again, I say.

So yes, Cher has sex with her fiance’s brother, but can you blame her? This is Nicolas Cage’s hottest role² and he’s already knocked over multiple things. Johnny is boring and in Sicily. I seriously doubt he’s toppled a table even once. She feels guilty about it and is like, “All I want to do is have a nice boring marriage because I screwed up my life when my husband got hit by that bus,” and Ronny promises to stay away from the wedding (because you know his mere presence would ruin it…who even knows what he would knock over in his desperation to get to Cher) IF she’ll go to the opera with him. He drives a hard bargain, that Ronny!

Meanwhile, Cher’s family is in an absolute tailspin. Her dad, Cosmo, is cheating on her mom (who, again, is Olympia Dukakis!!) with some random lady named Mona. Olympia Dukakis knows she’s being cheated on and is eating alone at their local Italian restaurant when she encounters John Mahoney. Yes, the same John Mahoney who tried to kill Cher in Suspect. He’s much less murderous in this one (that we know of), but he’s not exactly a good guy. It’s strange that I spent so much of my childhood thinking of John Mahoney solely as the dad from Frasier, a funny but not exactly morally complicated role, and now I’ve seen three films where he plays really interesting, often criminal characters.

In Moonstruck he’s just playing a creep: a professor who keeps dating his young female students, who inevitably end up throwing their drinks in his face at the Italian restaurant. Olympia Dukakis, down in the dumps, offers to let him eat with her. This is (heavy sigh) John Mahoney’s hottest role. Even though she’s not a twenty-year-old student, he’s still into her. He walks her home and she has the chance to sleep with him, to cheat on her husband like he’s cheating on her, to get even! But does she do it? No. What she says really struck me: “I can’t invite you in because I know who I am.”

I will not apologize for thinking John Mahoney is hot.

I’m obsessed, in film, literature, and life, with people who make tough choices because of their own ethical stances. Perhaps this is because I have my own annoyingly rigid moral code (and it is, to be clear, extremely annoying for the people around me). The inclusion of this storyline, and this choice, in the film is so interesting! Olympia Dukakis is really a side character here, one of several romances in the film. What are we to understand about her, about the nature of love, in her refusal to cheat on her husband even though John Mahoney is right there? Cher and Cher’s dad are both engaged in what is technically cheating. Cher’s relationship with Ronny is passionate and one we’re rooting for. We see Cher’s dad’s, Cosmo’s, cheating as bad, but for all we know his relationship could be just as passionate. Perhaps he’s knocking over tables off screen. But Olympia Dukakis is clearly in pain, and she’s clearly in the right.

But back to Cher. Guess what she does as she gets ready for the opera…she gets a makeover!

It’s not like Cher ever looked bad…Ronny clearly wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers. However, it’s pure elation whenever we get the chance to see Cher get glam again. It’s her natural state. A Cher without makeup feels…slightly off. She loses the gray hair and puts on some blood red lipstick, buys a new dress, and BAM! She’s Cher! She’s going to the opera and she looks like a million bucks. And do you know what Ronny says when he sees her dress?

He says “thank you.” This is the correct response.

If you’re trying to have a platonic relationship with your fiance’s brother (whom you already slept with), I wouldn’t advise going to the opera. I mean, it doesn’t exactly cool things off between them. Emotions are heightened! They run into Cosmo and Mona! They end up back at Ronny’s place and he delivers, I swear to you, the best monologue I’ve ever heard. I know I said the bread/hand monologue was the best, but THIS one is like...this one is a romance novel. Ronny is saying things that you want your romance novel heroes to say, and he’s delivering them with that classic Nicolas Cage weirdness. It’s an unforgettable combination. Just watch! He has his little bowtie on. It’s snowing. Cher’s crying. Show me a better scene in cinema, I dare you.

Ahem: “Everything seems like nothing to me now, 'cause I want you in my bed. I don't care if I burn in hell. I don't care if you burn in hell. The past and the future is a joke to me now. I see that they're nothing. I see they ain't here. The only thing that's here is you and me…Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!”

It doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is. It doesn’t matter what your relationship status is. By the time Ronny finishes speaking, you are going to sleep with him. Just call him Travis Kelce because he knew what he wanted and boy, he got her.

Cher walks home in the morning looking the absolute hottest she’s ever looked, kicking a can down the street with the city in the background and opera playing (you should read this very nice piece about this scene, written during peak Covid times).

So yeah, Cher has a problem! This is an example of a classic movie genre, “Woman Has a Weird thing with Two Brothers” (see also: While You Were Sleeping). Johnny is home from Sicily because his mother’s not dying now (?) but Cher has a visible hickey from his brother. It’s chaos. Ronny shows up wearing a jacket and looking/acting exactly like a grown up, respectful Jess Mariano. I mean, Jess Mariano wishes he was this charismatic.

Johnny is all “we can’t get married now! It will kill my mother!” I know we’re not into Johnny, but like…get some therapy, my dude. You’re in your forties. You can’t let your mother run your life from another country. Cher gets mad because Johnny made a promise (relatable; I would be mad too) until Ronny is like, “uh…did you forget that we slept together mere hours ago.” And then HE proposes! Using the same ring! Okay, practically speaking, I do feel like Cher and Ronny should’ve hashed out a few details. Like, where are they going to live. Does Ronny want kids. Maybe invest in a new ring. Etc. But also I don’t care because this is very romantic and impulsive and you know that’s Ronny’s style.

Oh yeah, and Olympia Dukakis tells Cosmo to stop seeing his mistress and he’s like, kinda pissed about it? But he says okay. Not an entirely satisfying storyline but that’s fine, because everyone ends up happy! Even Johnny!

Not pictured: John Mahoney getting a drink thrown in his face by another young female student

Name a better romance. You can’t. This one has it all: New York, Nicolas Cage, Italian food, opera, Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore,” a lot of dogs, and Cher. This is a perfect (or as Ronny would say, “perfeck”) film to absolutely surrender to—you have to give up your hold on logic and practicality for this film. You have to let yourself feel the biggest feelings there are. You have to let Cosmo’s moon tell you what to think.

And if you don’t like Moonstruck…well…

Moonstruck is available to watch for free on Tubi and Pluto, but I watched it on my Criterion DVD which is really beautiful. This picture greeted me when I opened the DVD case. Do you think this was their engagement photo?

This may be the end of our Summer of Cher, but I’m considering doing Mermaids, which I haven’t seen in years. Basically all I remember is that Cher makes appetizers and Jake Ryan is there. Mermaids fans, let yourself be known! That’s it for this week…and now that we’re back into the school year, newsletters should be more frequent (barring illness, as per usual). Oh, and if you know of a romance novel with Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck energy (desperate, willing to burn in hell for a woman, wild, etc.) please share in the comments. You’ll be doing the Lord’s work. See you soon. xo

1. She was also nominated for Silkwood, and I’d argue she should’ve been nominated for Mask…you know what, she should’ve been nominated for Suspect, too, in the category of “looking great in a beret” which doesn’t exactly exist but it should have.

2. Second hottest Nic Cage role is Valley Girl, where he’s similarly unhinged.