Amazon.com: In the early '60s, nomadic single mom Mrs. Flax (Cher) packs up her two daughters, Charlotte (Winona Ryder) and Kate (Christina Ricci), in a beat-up Chevy wagon and moves to small-town Massachusetts. Preteen Kate is obsessed with swimming, while 15-year-old Charlotte is searching for ways to rebel against her mom (and mom's flirty ways). The route she chooses is to become fascinated with Catholicism and all its arcane rituals, even though the family is Jewish. Her coming of age is handled with plenty of Wonder Years-style voiceovers as she fantasizes about Christ, the saints, the Pope, the Church--all things Catholic. Cracks in her religious armor begin to appear, though, in the form of a hunky local guy (Michael Schoeffling) who works at the convent. Meanwhile, her mom strikes up a romance with the town shoe-store proprietor, Lou (Bob Hoskins). Though Richard Benjamin's movie is a bit slow and tends to lose its focus somewhat in the last third, Mermaids also has fairly credible dialogue and surprisingly believable chemistry between Cher and Hoskins. The segments dealing with JFK's assassination are handled particularly well, and while Ricci's role is a rather small one, she's charming nonetheless. It's all too easy for coming-of-age movies to veer toward the maudlin, but thankfully this engaging comedy-drama seldom does. Cher, by the way, reprises her 1966 Sonny and Cher look, substituting a tight skirt and pumps for her turtleneck and fur vest. --Jerry Renshaw
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - I Love This Movie!
If you want to know what Mermaids is all about plot-wise, there are dozens of reviews to tell you that, but as for me, I'm here to gush praises on one of my favorite movies ever! When I was a teen I loved this movie to death! I saw it a few weeks back and you know what, it's still pretty much wonderful! When I think of this film I think of the good old days, not the pre-upheaval 1960's Mermaids depicts, I mean my own good old days of the early '90's when I'd watch this movie all the time, and life was so darn good. Mermaids is just an awesome movie, I don't see how anybody can NOT be enchanted ... Read More
Rating: - A quirky chick-flick
My wife and I recently watched this movie and when it was over, she called it a "quirky chick-flick." I couldn't agree more. Cher is a talented actress, but that talent is truly displayed when she plays an unusual character. That is the case here. In this movie, she is Mrs. Flax, a woman with two daughters that is ahead of her time. Abandoned by her husband during the birth of her first child and having been impregnated by a guest at the hotel where she was working as a maid, Mrs. Flax stays in a location for a short time and then moves on. Given the time setting of the early sixties, it makes her ... Read More
Rating: - Gypsy Mama
Cher plays the gypsy mama to two daughter who moves every time she gets her heart broken. Winona Ryder plays the older daughter who finds being 15 and a parent to her mother difficult when she finds herself competing with mom for the attention of a handsom older classmate. An interesting film about the chaos of frequent moves and uncertainty in the early 60's.
Rating: - Charming movie about mother-daughter relationship
This is a great movie filled with likable characters, good acting and wonderful setting. Mermaids revolves around a single mom, Mrs Flax [played by Cher] who has the tendency to uproot her two daughters and move whenever the going gets tough. They end up in a town on the east coast and settle into a rather unconventional lifestyle, for Mrs Flax is quite an eccentric and quirky character, whose volatile relationship with her oldest daughter, Charlotte [well-acted by Winona Ryder] makes for great viewing [their on-screen chemistry as sparring mother & daughter is very believable]. Charlotte is passionate ... Read More
Rating: - Another Moving Dance Scene
"Mermaids,"(1990) starring the well-known singer-actress-entertainer Cher, is another good romantic comedy that came along on the heels of the 1980s. The clarion-voiced Cher, of course, has been singing since the mid-60's, with her then-husband, Sonny Bono and without him, and has had many chart-topping hits; they had a widely popular television show in the 1970s. The actress won an Oscar for "Moonstruck," also made "Silkwood," "The Witches of Eastwood," and "Mask."
"Mermaids" is, without doubt, a chick flick. It was orignally meant to be the Scandinavian director Lasse Hallstrom's American ... Read More
- 
- 