Well, movie stars yet<\/em>. The main thing that\u2019s changed in the 35 or so years since I first watched Mystic Pizza<\/em> is the status of its cast, primarily one Julia Roberts, who would of course follow it up with Steel Magnolias<\/em>, which resulted in her first Oscar nomination, and Pretty Woman<\/em>, which resulted in her becoming one of the biggest stars on the planet. So watching Mystic Pizza<\/em> in 2025 isn\u2019t about a good story and some good acting, the way it was in 1988 (or 1989); it\u2019s about watching one of the rockets of contemporary popular culture, as she was about to blast off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s all there. Roberts might not have fully understood the technical specifics of movie acting, but she had something that couldn\u2019t be taught. The full power of her charisma becomes evident early on, in a bar scene where she steals the attention of her eventual beau from his uptight, dull date. But even before she starts sinking shots on the pool table, before she even says anything, you find yourself watching her watch what\u2019s going on. Director Donald Petrie keeps putting her in tight close-ups, nothing more than reaction shots, but she has that undefinable yet undeniable thing<\/em>; the camera just loves her, and you can\u2019t stop looking at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that goes for the entire cast, which is full of future stars\u2014or, at the very least, future familiar faces\u2014all ridiculously young and so sexy. It\u2019s an ensemble picture, but if there is a lead<\/em>, a focal point and recipient of the most screen time, it\u2019s the delightful Annabeth Gish. She\u2019d appeared in Hiding Out <\/em>opposite Jon Cryer the year before, the closest any of these leads had come to a big role in a big movie, and Kit, the good girl on her way to Yale University who falls into an unfortunate relationship with a married man, seems like the breakout role\u2014unless, apparently, you\u2019re sharing the screen with Julia Roberts. It\u2019s hard not to draw a parallel between their onscreen dynamic and their offscreen fates; Kit resents Roberts\u2019 Daisy for getting all the attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The third lead, and their story, is that of Jojo, played by the wonderful Lili Taylor, who is heartfelt and grounded and perfect as the girl whose boyfriend Bill is pushing her to get married (or, after the disastrous ceremony that opens the movie, to get married really this time<\/em>). She loves the guy, but recognizes that settling down with him means settling down for a life in Mystic, Connecticut, and maybe she\u2019s not quite ready to settle just yet. This is all understandable, yet lent genuine complexity by the marvelous performance of lil\u2019 ol\u2019 Vincent D\u2019Onofrio, with his HEART on his SLEEVE, as Bill. \u201cI\u2019m tellin\u2019 you, Jo, that I love you,\u201d he pleads. \u201cDoesn\u2019t that mean anything to you?\u201d And it\u2019s hard not to feel for him – and her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u2019Onofrio is about the only likable guy in the thing; William R. Moses, as Kit\u2019s employer\/crush, is just slimy, and Adam Storke as \u201cCharles Gordon Winsor Jr.\u201d (the preppiest name ever put to celluloid) never makes us believe he\u2019s anything more than a rich douche, though the way Roberts looks at him, you almost <\/em>believe he\u2019s as wonderful as she does. But the guys don\u2019t matter anyway; what\u2019s important here is the three-girl dynamic, which is both entertaining and believable (you totally buy that they\u2019ve been friends and co-workers this long). And Conchata Ferrell (who would later spar, memorably, with Roberts in Erin Brockovich<\/em>) finds just the right matronly note as their employer and confidante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But everybody in Mystic Pizza<\/em> gets a chance to shine. There is some genuinely complex acting happening in the scene after Kit and Tim finally succumb to their desires, only to come back to his home and find his wife has returned early; even better is the scene just after, as Taylor drives and freaks out and talks a mile a minute while Gish sits next to her, just a shell, broken. \u201cI just feel so stupid<\/em>,\u201d she cries to Roberts, and then she asks, simply, \u201cWhy does it hurt so much?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And maybe that\u2019s what\u2019s surprising here – these moments of raw, open-wound acting that we\u2019ve come to not expect from gentle, modest indie dramas. When Daisy sees Charles through the window of the country club, the way that moment hits and registers on Roberts\u2019s face is what good movie acting is about. But the way she pivots, the rawness and emotional force of what follows (\u201cI WANNA KILL HIM I\u2019M SO STUPID\u201d) catches us off-guard, as does the quiet, resigned melancholy of her subsequent announcement: \u201cI fucked up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that scene, director Amy Holden Jones (who co-wrote the script with Perry Howze, Randy Howze, and Driving Miss Daisy<\/em> scribe Alfred Uhry) fakes us out; we think it\u2019s going to play out in the obvious way, the way it has (and would) in a million other movies, and then there\u2019s more. This happens again, to even more devastating effect, in one of Daisy and Charles\u2019s later scenes, when he brings her home to meet his parents and takes the opportunity to stand up for her, loudly and grandly. And she sees right through him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And maybe that\u2019s what\u2019s made Mystic Pizza<\/em> stand the test of time, more than the wattage of its stars or the coziness of its milieu. This isn\u2019t just a warm movie, or a romantic one, or a funny one, though it\u2019s certainly all of those things. It\u2019s a movie that knows that indulging in those qualities doesn\u2019t also mean playing dumb, and talking down to your audience. Petrie and his writers know we\u2019ve seen movies like this, and know how these stories usually go \u2014 and make a conscious decision to be better and smarter than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Mystic Pizza” is streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>, Kanopy<\/a>, Hoopla<\/a>, the Roku Channel<\/a>, and MGM+<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mystic2-1024x576.jpg\")
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