Mermaids

Though Mermaids moves in familiar circles, it tells its story (which is as much about mom's coming of age as the kids') in a nice mix of daft comedy and dramatic set pieces. It's a kind of Terms of Endearment without the tearjerking. [14 Dec 1990, p.G5]

The better you remember 1963, the better your chances of liking Mermaids. It's not so much a movie as it is a time capsule. The fun is in seeing what gets pulled out next. [14 Dec 1990, p.8]

It's sweet and funny one moment, melodramatic and contrived the next. Blending the moods, and often holding the film together through sheer force of personality, Ryder gives her most affecting performance to date. [14 Dec 1990, p.26]

It's undemanding good fun, even when the script turns sentimental. [14 Dec 1990]

Mermaids is not exactly good, but it is not boring. Winona Ryder, in another of her alienated outsider roles, generates real charisma. And what the movie is saying about Cher is as elusive as it is intriguing. Read full review

Somewhat raggedly directed by Richard Benjamin from an often witty June Roberts script, Mermaids is a likable coming-of-age comedy that can't quite decide how real it wants to be. In its weakest moments, it abandons psychological logic for fits of the cutes. But see it for Ryder, Cher and Ricci: they make this oddball family memorable. [17 Dec 1990, p.70]

What's lost in momentum is gained back in the unexpectedness of the jokes and the quality of the performances. Mermaids is an infectious, bouncy diversion, like the fruity dance the girls and their mother do around the kitchen table at the film's end. Read full review

Winona Ryder, rather than Cher, is the real star of Mermaids, and her fine performance as a hormone-stunned teen-ager is the main reason to see this otherwise mildly entertaining, somewhat muddled comic melodrama. [14 Dec 1990, p.3F]

All three leads are genuinely appealing here, with Ryder once again acting her bobby sox off and giving yet further reminder of just how sorely she was missed in Godfather III. Read full review

A terribly gentle if wisecracking comedy about the serious business of growing up. Read full review

As eccentric mother-daughter films go, this one [from the novel by Patty Dann] falls into the same category as Terms of Endearment, with many of the same comedic pleasures and dramatic pitfalls. The delightful Ryder, billing notwithstanding, is really the star. Cher is also fine as the cavalier, self-centered mom, an equally amusing if less sympathetic character. Read full review

Frankly, Mermaids is the kind of movie that needs the strong personalities of Cher and Ryder, and is lucky it has them. They put the movie over. It has a weak script, and the direction by Richard Benjamin - who had two predecessors on this project - is so reticent as to be almost absent. There's almost no pacing or shaping to speak of. [14 Dec 1990, p.53P]

Cher plays a footloose, life-loving mother of two fatherless daughters who sports a bouffant hairdo and, at one crucial point, a Mylar mermaid costume that looks as if it were constructed, on a bet by designer Bob Mackie, entirely out of common household objects. The part isn't much of a stretch for America's reigning queen of wacky non-conformity, though it should please her established fans while scraping the nerves of the unconvinced as lightly as possible. Read full review

If John Waters had directed Mermaids, the new Cher comedy, it might have more of the spunk and the trash that it needs. In the hands of middlebrow director Richard Benjamin, it starts off promisingly but finally sinks into schmaltz and melodrama. [14 Dec 1990, p.E1]

Mermaids will satisfy those who like sentiment served on a plastic platter. Others should treat it like 3-day-old fish. [14 Dec 1990, p.5D]

The film is burdened by curious details and observations, and its preoccupation with all things aquatic (little sister is an ace swimmer, Mom dresses up as a mermaid for New Year's Eve, etc) is overworked. Characterisation suffers, with Charlotte and her mother too self-absorbed to engage our sympathies. Crucially, they just aren't funny. Read full review

Sadly, the film had all the elements to be a very captivating experience, but it fails to bring those elements together into a strong whole. Read full review

This tender tale of two sisters coping with their free-spirited mother in innocent 1963 is just too cute. It needs some chinks in its gossamer-glazed armor. [14 Dec 1990, p.12]

This movie, set in the '60s and starring Cher, Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins, doesn't come of age so much as die of it. It's awash in mediocrity, waterlogged with innocuousness and redeemed only occasionally by sweet-faced Ryder. Read full review

In the end, there’s something a little insulting about a contemporary movie that reduces women to either trashy bimbos or repressed virgins. Read full review