Mystic Pizza is a "tasty" coming of age movie. (Mystic Pizza (DVD))

Member Name: DUKE41

Product:	Mystic Pizza (DVD)
Date:	28/06/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's got Julia Roberts in it, but she looks so, so grumpy!

Disadvantages: Kat's a bit of a drip.

WHAT IS MYSTIC PIZZA?

Mystic Pizza is a coming of age film about three waitresses in a pizza restaurant. It was released in 1988 and was directed by Donald Petrie. Donald Petrie is the son of another director, Daniel Petrie. Petrie Junior later went on to direct Miss Congeniality and How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days.

The restaurant is situated in a place called Mystic in Connecticut, hence its name and is owned by a large lady called Leona. Conchatta Ferrell, the actress who plays her now stars as Bertha in Two And A Half Men.

THE PLOT

The film starts with Jojo (Lili Taylor) about to marry Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio) but she gets cold feet and calls it off. All she wants to do is have sex with Bill and at one stage during the film the couple are caught out by her parents. He gets peeved off with her and gives her an ultimatum, does she want to be with him for his body or for his personality? Considering he hasn't got much of a personality and sounds like Sylvester Stallone when he talks she's gonna struggle to make up her mind!

Meanwhile Kat (Annabeth Gish) gets a job as a nanny for Tim, whose wife is away from home and seemingly out of the picture. Tim's daughter grows fond of Kat who wants to study astronomy at Yale. Kat begins to fall in love with Tim. Not a good idea! Tim is portrayed by William R.Moses who I can remember starring in Perry Mason mysteries with Raymond Burr.

That leaves Daisy, portrayed by Julia Roberts in one of her early roles. She doesn't have a clue what she wants to do and finds it hard to raise a smile. In fact, Julia Roberts spends most of the film looking like she's swallowed a wasp.

Daisy starts going out with a rich guy called Charles Gordon Windsor (Adam Storke) and she shows her true colours when she drops loads of sewage on his convertible after she mistakes his sister for another woman. Anyway I doubt the relationship would have worked out for them as Charles' father (a dead ringer for Alan Partridge) didn't like her because she worked as a waitress. It's a good job she didn't work as a cleaner. He probably would have topped himself!

In one scene she buys a pig of a dress (that's what my wife called it) for a hundred dollars and claims that she would take it back to the store after wearing it. Good luck with that I say. We never get to see whether the shop assistant was that gullible.

THE VERDICT

I quite enjoyed Mystic Pizza and my wife must have done because she has worn the videotape out. (She's had it since 1993!) It's a decent film which will make you laugh, scream and cringe. It's definitely not a bloke's film, more of a couple's film.

Summary: Enjoyable film from the director of Miss Congeniality.