Why I love Cher’s per­for­mance in Moonstruck

Love, trans­for­ma­tion and mys­ti­cism play key roles in Moon­struck, and at the heart of this off­beat roman­tic com­e­dy released 35 years ago is Loret­ta Cas­tori­ni (Cher), nav­i­gat­ing Ital­ian-Amer­i­can fam­i­ly dynam­ics, a mar­riage pro­pos­al, an unex­pect­ed turn of events, and meta­mor­pho­sis — while the biggest celes­tial body clos­est to Earth affects the char­ac­ters dur­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly brighter phase. ​“Look! It’s Cosmo’s moon!” exclaims Ray­mond (Louis Guss) to his wife, Rita (Julie Bovas­so), as he peers out their bed­room win­dow in Brook­lyn Heights. It’s a moment where most char­ac­ters in the film mar­vel at its mes­mer­iz­ing effect: a spec­tac­u­lar orb of tem­po­rary beau­ty and nat­ur­al light.

As for Cher, it was as though the stars aligned for her role in Moon­struck. She had Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jim­my Dean, Jim­my Dean, Silk­wood and Mask under her belt,as well as music and TV expe­ri­ence. This jour­ney led her to Moon­struck, which was one of her crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed come­backs. In her accep­tance speech for Best Actress in 1988 for Moon­struck, Cher humbly said, ​“And I don’t think this means that I am some­body, but I guess I’m on my way.”

When we first meet Loret­ta in the open­ing cred­its – jux­ta­posed with behind-the-scenes hus­tle and bus­tle at New York City’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera – she’s liv­ing life in a tri­an­gu­lar rou­tine. Home, work at her book­keep­ing job, eat, sleep, repeat. In a sim­i­lar fash­ion, her non­de­script, neu­tral col­or-palette wardrobe in grays and blacks and pulled-back hair with loose side wisps give off a relat­able, down-to-earth ener­gy. Loret­ta does what she needs to do,and lives com­pla­cent­ly with her par­ents as a widow.

Dis­cus­sions of Loretta’s mar­i­tal sta­tus bring up the ques­tion if she’s cursed and the leit­mo­tif of being jinxed runs through Moonstruck’s arter­ies: not just in terms of Loret­ta, but also in oth­er peo­ple she encoun­ters. Loret­ta brings her new fiancé, John­ny (Dan­ny Aiel­lo) to the air­port and wish­es him safe trav­els to Sici­ly: John­ny is trav­el­ling to see his sick moth­er lying on her deathbed. While star­ing at the air­plane wait­ing for its depar­ture, Loret­ta engages in small talk with an old­er woman emit­ting a sin­is­ter vibe. We learn the old woman’s sis­ter is also a pas­sen­ger on the plane to Sici­ly – the sis­ter stole the old woman’s man many years ago – so she casts an evil spell on it, hop­ing it will explode (she isn’t successful).

But as luck would have it, and with John­ny away, here is where Loret­ta starts to eclipse oth­er char­ac­ters ( thus earn­ing Cher her Oscar). Loret­ta promis­es John­ny that she’ll reach out to his estranged broth­er, Ron­ny (Nico­las Cage), who remains bit­ter over los­ing his left hand in a bak­ery acci­dent – he blames John­ny for the loss and his sub­se­quent string of bad luck. After a few con­ver­sa­tions, Loret­ta and Ronny’s chem­istry is as pal­pa­ble as his thick hair and sweat on his body: He works as a bak­er for his family’s busi­ness and gives off a semi-fer­al, lupine feel. Their intense exchanges even­tu­al­ly segue into seem­ing­ly raw, unfil­tered words (cap­tured by screen­writer John Patrick Shanley):

“Loret­ta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice — it ruins every­thing. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things per­fect. The snowflakes are per­fect. The stars are per­fect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin our­selves and to break our hearts and love the wrong peo­ple and die. The sto­ry­books are bull­shit,” wails Ronny.

This mono­logue encap­su­lates the core of Moon­struck: an imper­fect course of love. It evolves, takes many forms, and fol­lows a non­lin­ear path. Cher through Loret­ta beau­ti­ful­ly por­trays this sen­ti­ment and in par­al­lel, Ron­ny, Rose (a stel­lar Olympia Dukakis) and Cos­mo (Vin­cent Gar­de­nia) con­front a sim­i­lar reck­on­ing. Though all prin­ci­pal actors shine bright­ly in Moon­struck, Cher’s por­tray­al of Loret­ta com­mands the spot­light. When Ron­ny says he loves Loret­ta, she takes the road less trav­eled in regards to courtship: she slaps him twice, telling him to ​“snap out of it!” Loretta’s pow­er­ful light comes with a whop­ping punch.

How­ev­er much lat­er, Loret­ta even­tu­al­ly comes around to soft­en­ing up. She suc­cumbs to the real­i­ty that she has also fall­en for Ron­ny, admit­ting every­thing to her moth­er, Rose. ​“Aw Ma, I love him awful,” she says with a sigh of relief. Loret­ta is still beam­ing but with a gen­tle glow.

What leads to this con­fes­sion of love is one mem­o­rable makeover mon­tage in cin­e­ma his­to­ry: Loret­ta gives into Ronny’s insis­tence and agrees to meet him at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera. To get ready for the big night, she buys a strap­less, form-fit­ting dress that wows — topped off with a shawl — and fin­ished with lip­stick red heels. Loret­ta also makes a trip to the salon where a hair­dress­er dyes her tress­es to dark­en the strands of gray: she wears her mane styled down with incred­i­ble vol­ume. This looks like a pre­view of the Cher we will come to know lat­er in real life as the ​“God­dess of Pop,” but for now in Moon­struck, she’s divine in a dif­fer­ent way. At this point, we’ve for­got­ten about the unlucky, mousey Loret­ta we knew from ear­li­er scenes — except for the feisty atti­tude. Wait­ing for Loret­ta in the foy­er of the opera house, Ron­ny imme­di­ate­ly notices the stark change in Loretta’s appear­ance, say­ing to her, ​“You look beau­ti­ful.” Loret­ta responds mat­ter of fact­ly with a hint of hap­pi­ness ​“I had it done.”

Fol­low­ing their night at the opera, Loretta’s famous ​“walk of shame” becomes a solo waltz in the same crim­son heels, bask­ing in the after­glow of sex. Loretta’s aura match­es Cosmo’s moon from the night before: Her eupho­ria jumps off the screen and is for­ev­er cap­tured on the film poster with her arms in the air, one knee bent, and her head tilt­ed to the side. That’s cos­mic amore – ad she’s why audi­ences have been lovestruck all these years.