This review is, I admit, a tiny bit late. I received (for, you know, feminism viewing purposes only, OBVIOUSLY) this film on Christmas Day 2018*, but what with life moving pretty fast** I didn’t get round to actually writing about it until now. That’s okay, though, because rest assured that the memory of this film is forever scorched into my tender, innocent brain, NEVER TO BE EVISCERATED.

Is it a feminist film? Okay, so quick plot summary: it’s about three “friends” who work in a pizza restaurant in a little “town” called, um, Mystic. Unfortunately I had to utilise those quotes because the three actors have so little chemistry that one must necessarily assume that the minute the shoot ended they all ran screaming in opposite directions***, and as for the town, well, all that needs to be said is that everyone- EVERYONE- has a job gutting fish and yet it is 1988 so someone’s got to be hiding a dark secret somewhere. The three young women are, and I quote the back of the box here,

“sexy Daisy Araujo, her sensible sister Kat and their wisecracking friend Jojo.”

So no problems at all there then! Apart from the fact that all three of these characters, in the actual film, sadly fit into exactly the boxes prescribed for them. (Apart from the fact that “sexy” isn’t a personality trait, but that’s pretty much irrelevant here.) Kat is the nerdy astronomy student who gets involved with the moronic, much-too-old astronomy-curious intellectual. Jojo resists marriage at first but is eventually persuaded by her moronic, presumably seventeenth century Puritan descendant boyfriend****. Plus the fact that there isn’t even the consolation of her supposed “wisecracks”- which are literally non-existent, here’s me looking through the script, I’m looking through it right now, I CAN’T FIND ONE. Daisy is undoubtedly the most interesting character, because she’s the only one of them who’s got any character. Julia Roberts- her hair commendably, delightfully 80s enormous- tries hard to embody the charismatic but slut-shamed girl who makes her own way in the world. But she’s hindered by one thing: the fact that she’s playing the ‘girlfriend’ character, but as a protagonist. They all are, to some extent. It’s incongruous and weird and probably explains why they’ve got so little camaraderie. (That, and the fact that- despite this ostensibly being a film about this weird thing called “female friendship”- there are barely two scenes together where the three protagonists actually have conversations.)

Is it disturbing? No, but it is kind of disturbing how all the women who get a chance to, get back together with their idiot boyfriends at the end with no qualms about whether this guy who has lied to you/insulted you/publicly shamed you in front of the whole town (actually happened) deserves to be your boyfriend, let alone your husband.

And… does it pass the Bechdel test? Yes, but all that glitters is not gold and all that passes the Bechdel test is not necessarily feminist. I’ll let you think on that one.

Look, I know this isn’t a great recommendation and actually it isn’t a recommendation at all because this film is pretty much rubbish. Immediately after watching this, I watched another film I got for Christmas- Run Lola Run. Which is an infinitely better film stylistically, cinematographically and feminism-ly. However, I will concede that there is one great moment in Mystic Pizza- and that is when an angry Daisy gets a massive barrel of fish (those people in props KNEW the excess fish-barrels would come in handy one day!) and tips it into her wealthy love interest’s posh car. *Cinematic GOLD*

*Thanks mum!

**Did you know that it’s International Eighties Film Quote Day? Well, it is! Because it’s International Eighties Film Quote Day every day.

***Yes, just like the orcs at the end of The Return of the King! If you were actually thinking that before you read this footnote, then we’re on such a similar wavelength that you need to come over here and be friends with me, right now.

****If you’re thinking that I might be wrongfully ascribing the word “moronic” to these poor helpless men, “Consider the considerable evidence” (Numbers, Kieron Barry.) One is a creepy forty-year-old who breaks his teenage girlfriend’s heart when his wife comes home; the other is a guy who is relentlessly moralistic himself but has no qualms on changing his girlfriend’s name “Jojo” on the side of his boat to “Nympho”. Not even funny, people!