So many romantic comedies take place against a backdrop of the happy brightness of summer, or the picture-perfect colors of fall, or the sparkling whimsy of the holiday season. “Moonstruck,” playing against type, takes place in November. The skies are gray and cold, and everybody’s shivering on the Brooklyn streets in their bulky ’80s coats. It’s not a hopeful setting — and then it snows, just once, like magic. The snowflakes, as a character memorably observes, are perfect.
As is “Moonstruck,” the wistful 1987 rom-com starring an exquisite Cher, an absurdly young Nicolas Cage and a remarkable ensemble cast. Directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by playwright John Patrick Shanley, it’s long been my go-to movie when things seem dark, and it never fails to whisk me away into a place of love, laughter, warmth and screwball dialogue. Considering the state of things these days, I think we all need “Moonstruck” right about now. (Clearly the Criterion Collection thinks so; it’s finally releasing the movie on a special edition DVD, just out Nov. 17.)
Cher, who won an Oscar for her performance here, plays Loretta Castorini, a widowed bookkeeper in her late 30s who lives with her parents, Rose and Cosmo (Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia), and is determined to change her luck. Toward that end, she accepts a marriage proposal from her unexciting gentleman companion Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello) who asks her, as he boards a plane to Palermo, to contact his estranged younger brother Ronny (Cage) and invite him to the wedding. She does so, and anyone who’s ever seen a rom-com can guess what happens next.
No summary, however, can properly describe the charms of “Moonstruck,” whose characters all seem enchanted by the full moon over Brooklyn that illuminates the movie. Loretta, an eminently practical woman (when Johnny complains that getting down on one knee to propose will ruin his suit, she shoots back “It came with two pairs of pants!”), doesn’t want to fall for Ronny; she’d rather cook him a steak and explain to him how his life went wrong. But she’s not quite as sensible as she thinks she is, once she meets Ronny’s yearning eyes. There’s a spark, lit by their immediate, hilarious arguing (“A bride without a head!” “A wolf without a foot!”), and stoked by the lusciously romantic music of Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Ronny’s favorite opera.