What I Learned From Mystic Pizza

When I was watching Mystic Pizza for the first time in many years, something occurred to me: this movie has nothing to do with pizza. Obviously the pizza is what I focused on when I was 10. But now I am much wiser and that pizza definitely does not look appetizing. It also helps that I understand what “nympho” means. All of this has allowed me to have a more nuanced reading of this great coming-of-age film. And so, this is what I learned from Mystic Pizza.

1. New England is the best

Are we supposed to focus on the relationship sagas that Daisy, Kat, and Jojo find themselves in? Because I focused on how charming Connecticut is and that New Englanders love hideous, oversized sweaters.

2. Daisy is a working class version of Regina George

This is my way of saying that Daisy kind of a bitch and I like it when Julia Roberts plays bitches.

3. Class differences lead to misunderstandings and boring relationships

Daisy meets this dude at the local bar. I don’t remember his name.

Since Daisy is a working class girl, naturally his family is wealthy.  So the main conflict of this relationship is their class differences. ( I am shocked. Shocked.) How they overcome these differences is endearing and dreadfully boring.

Also at one point, his friend named Lorna calls Daisy “a hustler” because she good at playing pool. Lorna knows what a hustler is because she saw a movie. It was probably The Color of Money. There is no way she’s seen The Hustler. This is my favorite scene from Mystic Pizza.

4. Architects are terrible human beings

Kat, the girl who is going to get the hell out of Mystic, gets a new job as a babysitter. She almost immediately falls for the father. He’s an architect. Even though she knows better, his dreamy architect ways seduce her.

Sidebar: I have a theory about architects in movies. When a character is an architect, it is because the filmmaker ran out of ideas. By making a character an architect, you’re basically implying “He needed to have some sort of career and no one expects an architect to be anything other than good looking and smart.” Furniture designers are the new architects.

5. The way to a young woman’s heart is through your hideous sweater.

The architect loans Kat his oversized sweater. Several scenes later she does it with him in his architecture sex lair. Then his wife shows up and we are all left thinking “I told you so”.

6. You don’t have to marry an asshole.

But you probably will marry him anyway.

7. Don’t mess with tradition.

Designer pizza is a stupid idea. The old curmudgeon with the food show on PBS will always prefer your unexciting pizza.

8. Everything you need to know about getting by in life, you can learn from Claudette Colbert.

9. Did I mention the oversized sweaters? Because they are truly awful. 

There are also some unfortunate flannel numbers.

At least Daisy remembered the beer.