Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

At her 25 year high school reunion, a woman (Kathleen Turner in an Oscar nominated performance) going through an unpleasant divorce with her husband (Nicolas Cage) faints and finds herself back in 1960. Knowing what she knows, will she be able to turn her life around? Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, this is a lovely memory piece that asks the question so many of us have asked ourselves at one time or another in our life, if we could go back in time would we do things differently? While there is plenty of humor in the movie, at its core it's about reassessing our lives, the dreams we had and the failures that we got instead. While the ending sends the audience home happy rather than taking risks, Coppola and his writers (Jerry Leichtling, Arlene Sarner) avoid the nostalgic traps that lie in a time travel tale such as this, there's not much affection for the era in this though it's lovingly recreated. The major downside in the film is Cage's misguided choices for his character, a true "WTF? what was he thinking?" creation. His character is so repulsive that it seems inconceivable Turner would waste her time. The restrained score is by John Barry. The large cast includes Jim Carrey, Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, Barbara Harris, Barry Miller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Don Murray, John Carradine, Leon Ames and Catherine Hicks.