Moonstruck (1987)

Directed by Norman Jewison. With Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello. Loretta Castorini, a bookkeeper from Brooklyn, New York, finds herself in a difficult situation when she falls for the brother of the man she has agreed to marry.

Loretta Castorini (Cher), a 37-year-old widow who still lives at home, falls in love with her timid fiance's (Danny Aiello) estranged brother, Ronny Cammarer...

When there's a full moon over Brooklyn, anything can happen, and everything happens in the neighborhood where widowed bookkeeper Loretta Castorini (Cher) lives. First, Loretta agrees to marry a man she does not love, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), simply because he knows how to propose properly. Before the wedding can take place, Cammareri must visit his dying mother in Sicily. In his absence, Loretta is supposed to try to patch up the differences between Johnny and his brother, bakery operator Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage). Having never forgiven Johnny for indirectly causing the accident that crippled him, Ronny flies into a rage whenever his brother's name is mentioned. He does, however, fall for Loretta like a ton of bricks. After a torrid affair, Loretta tries to avoid Ronny out of respect to Johnny, but he's just too fascinating to resist. Meanwhile, Loretta's father (Vincent Gardenia) is fooling around with his mistress Mona (Anita Gillette), while Loretta's mother (Olympia Dukakis) is wooed by a college professor (John Mahoney). These brief flings are forgiven and forgotten, but there's still the delicate situation of Loretta being in love with her future brother-in-law. A now-classic romantic comedy, Moonstruck won Oscars for Cher, Olympia Dukakis, and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley.

When Ronny Cammareri sweeps Loretta Castorini off her feet in "Moonstruck," he almost, in his exuberance, throws her over his shoulder. "Where are you taking me?" she cries. "To the bed!" he says. Not to bed, but to the bed. There is the slightest touch of formality in that phrasing, and it is enough to cause Loretta to let her head fall back in surrender. Such sublime abandon, by Nicolas Cage and Cher, is part of the magic of Norman Jewison's 1987 romantic comedy, but it also depends on truth spoken in plain words.

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Overview of Moonstruck, 1987, directed by Norman Jewison, with Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, at Turner Classic Movies

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