Directed by Richard Benjamin, "Mermaids" stars Winona Ryder as Charlotte Flax, a 15-year-old girl who lives with Rachel (Cher), her eccentric mother.
Set in the 1960s, "Mermaids" watches as Charlotte struggles to cope with her mother's inability to settle down. Rachel's "promiscuity" irks her daughter even further. In response Charlotte develops an infatuation with Catholicism, nuns and convents; she hopes to evade her mother's supposedly "sinful" life by becoming its pious opposite. By the film's end, both mother and daughter have learnt to accept each other, Rachel settling with a kindly man (Bob Hoskins), and Charlotte learning that happiness can exist outside conventionally "perfect" nuclear families.
"Terms of Endearment" (1983) spawned a decade of imitative Hollywood comedy-dramas. "Mermaids" is one of the last. It's elevated by Cher and Ryder's movie-star charisma, the former with her concrete cheeks and diva sassiness, the latter with her pixie hair and adorable wisecracks. Elsewhere director Richard Benjamin carefully juggles schmaltz, truths and comedy, all held together by beautiful Massachusetts scenery. The film's title alludes to both Charlotte's sister (Christina Ricci), a swimming prodigy, and the film's three central characters, all transient, itinerant women who refuse to drown in the face of life's little tsunamis.
7.9/10 - See "Anywhere But Here" and "Wendy and Lucy".