A Textual & Symbolism Approach to Mystic Pizza (1988)
Mystic Pizza (1988) – Textual & Symbolism
Happy Fall, boos! This week Ben, Biscuits, and I cozied up for a chilly New England fall afternoon and watched a film I didn’t realize was also about a chilly New England fall, and both the cozying and the watching were an absolute delight.
This week I watched Mystic Pizza (1988) for my first time, which feels wild because Pretty Woman (1990) is my favorite movie and Julia Roberts plays a toned down, teen version of Vivian here. The Review Roulette wheel landed on Textual for our approach, which, as a reminder, I use to look at the literal texts we see on screen or hear (script, signage, intertitles, etc.). There are countless amazing lines in this film like JoJo (Lili Taylor) saying she doesn’t have to marry an asshole because “it’s the 80s!” or when she steals a care and says “get a horse, you asshole,” but I want to bring in Symbolism as well for this analysis because I think the film does something absolutely classic and charming that 80s and 90s rom-coms really nailed.
So, Mystic Pizza is about two Portuguese-American sisters, Kat (Annabeth Gish) and Daisy Arujo (Roberts) and their best friend JoJo who all work at Mystic Pizza in Mystic, Connecticut. I truly am surprised I’d never seen it because this is like the ultimate comfort movie (CHECK), a rom-com (CHECK) with three love stories (CHECK, CHECK, CHECK), beautiful scenery (CHECK), and pizza lore (CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK). These three girls are navigating their late-teens, early adulthood in three very different stories that all feel believable. JoJo is first up as we open on what is meant to be her wedding day, but which is interrupted when she faints at the altar and spends the rest of the film trying to figure out what she actually wants with her partner Vincent D’Onofrio. He probably has a name in the film, but every time he was on screen, I was like “hey, it’s a young Vincent D’Onofrio,” so that’s who she’s banging while he’s begging her to make an honest man out of him. What a nice guy, that Vincent D’Onofrio.
Next there’s Daisy, who as I said is an earlier vision of Vivian. She’s a townie who hates tourists because they can leave Mystic and who spends her time with guys she knows aren’t good for her, wishing there was a way to escape that didn’t involve brains or money. There are a couple times Daisy acknowledges just how stuck she feels and how no one could be more disappointed or worried for her than she is, and it’s just heartbreaking to see someone who knows they’re unhappy but truly feels powerless to change it. Daisy gets involved with a wealthy guy whose parents own a mansion in Mystic, and they try to make it work across the Pretty in Pink wealth divide. This film also confirms the sub-genre of films in which one night of sex with Julia Roberts wearing a piece of men’s clothing makes rich white guys examine their choices and admit things their therapist’s three degrees couldn’t even dream of cracking.
Then there’s Kat who is changing things and is using her brains to get out of Mystic by attending Yale “next semester” in “February” which is probably the only thing that actively took me out of the movie every time they said it because what do you mean you’re starting YALE in FEBRUARY? What does that mean, child? Anyway, to pay for her astronomy studies at Yale in February, Kat has four jobs including the pizza place, the local planetarium, and a babysitting gig for 80s hunk William R. Moses who also probably had a name, but does any 80s hunk really have a name besides Jake Ryan? I don’t think so. So, she has a crush that William R. Moses stupidly encourages and develops into a fling the same night that his estranged wife gets home and immediately understands what’s happening. And then Annabeth Gish delivers the single most believable crying scene I have ever seen in cinema history. Girl had me crying. That was an emotion torn straight from experience and I felt that pain.
So, the textual symbolism that I want to focus on is actually a line spoken by William R. Moses in what is supposed to be a real seduction of Kat. He gets home from something or other and offers her juice or tea or water or something that’s clearly non-alcoholic because she’s not even a freshman in college yet, right? And Kat goes “I’ll have wine” and instead of being like “nah, big dawg, that’s inappropriate,” William R. Moses brings out two glasses of red wine to his romantic balcony so Kat can show him the stars and learn him some shit about constellations in a scene that she definitely thought was like “sexy librarian knows a whole bunch” but kind of had the energy of a kid showing his favorite dinosaur. She says something all smart and passionate about new moons, dark skies, and comets, and William R. Moses is desperate to make her stop talking about things she’s interested in — you know, like an asshole — so says “I propose a toast. To new moons, dark skies, and comets” which is exactly what she just said, he just repeated the last thing she said like he was listening the whole time and she swoons because she’s, again, not even a freshman in college.
But that toast, unfortunately, is the cute, clever, charming center of the film, and I am such a sucker for comfort movies that have a cute, clever, charming center. Daisy is the new moon, starting this budding relationship with a handsome prince who might just rescue her from the tower; JoJo is the dark skies, trying to navigate stormy emotions with her fisherman beau Vincent D’Onofrio; and Kat is the comet, experiencing what feels like this rare cosmic flash of fire and excitement that ushers in a new era in her life. And god damn do I love that. Don’t you love that?
I love when a movie gently suggests how to watch it and is like “I kinda thought this reading was neat, you can have it if you want it?” because it’s not an in-your-face ham-fisted “THIS IS THE PLOT OF THE STORY IN CASE YOU WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION,” it’s an elegant “if you are paying attention, here’s a cute, clever, charming metaphor you might enjoy.” And 80s/90s films did this so damn well. It’s like a neat little bow or a nod to camera like “yeah, you’re right, we did think this through.” And I think I love it because there are so many god awful rom-coms (that I love and cherish) that just repeat the plot or do the Netflix thing of like reminding you of the stakes and who the characters are every once in a while in case you were on your phone, and things like this in Mystic Pizza actually reward you for paying attention and being engrossed in the cute, clever, charming film in front of you but also don’t punish you for not. It’s like a little bonus layer, an extra topping on a great pizza.
Anyway, this film feels like eating an apple cider donut with a nice coffee in a big chunky sweater and blanket while listening to rustling leaves (apart from a momentary Mar-a-Lago jump scare), and that might be my favorite feeling in this world, so if you’re into that, you should also watch Mystic Pizza and then also google for 20 minutes trying to figure out if anyone has cracked the code on the secret spice blend from the Azores that makes their pizza so famous.
Because I’m Never Done When I Say I Am
Race/Ethnic
At the beginning of this movie, Kat goes down to the docks to give her fisherwoman (#feminism) mom a pizza, and I was like “I don’t know how culturally accurate this is, that was not a diverse group of people,” and I am woman enough to admit when I am wrong. While it’s not the main subject of this film, Mystic Pizza does in fact really showcase the Portuguese-American diaspora in fisherman communities along this stretch of the North Atlantic sea board. I don’t think any of the actors are Portuguese, for instance the mother who is suggested to be the kind of most traditional Portuguese character, is of Russian descent via Chicago, but there is a lot of social commentary about the community and the prejudices against them in Connecticut. An interesting inclusion nonetheless!
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