Mermaids (1990) on Netflix
PG-1319901h 50mComedyDramaRomance
Charlotte Flax, fifteen, drawn to Catholicism, moves with her mother Rachel and sister Kate to a Massachusetts town. She falls for Joe, the bus driver; Rachel takes up with Lou, a shopkeeper.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.7/1041,854 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1963 Oklahoma, Rachel Flax, thirty-one and single, relocates her daughters whenever a relationship ends. After an affair with her married employer, she takes fifteen-year-old Charlotte and nine-year-old Kate to Eastport, Massachusetts, where she becomes a lawyer's receptionist. Rachel's approach to parenting more resembles friendship than mothering, and Charlotte is anxious and embarrassed by her flamboyant ways. Charlotte is delighted that the new house borders a convent; her obsession with Catholicism annoys her irreligious, Jewish mother. Charlotte becomes enamored of Joe Peretti, the twenty-six-year-old school-bus driver who also cares for the convent. Rachel meets Lou Landsky, who owns a shoe store, and begins a relationship with him.
Cast
- Betsy Townsendas Mary O'Brien
- Richard McElvainas Mr. Crain
- William Paul Steeleas Boss in Oklahoma
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mermaids (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Two directors left before the film was made: Lasse Hallström, hired for what would have been his English-language feature debut, departed to direct Once Around, and his replacement Frank Oz abandoned the project after clashing with Cher and Winona Ryder.
- Emily Lloyd had begun shooting as Charlotte Flax when Cher complained she did not look enough like the character; Winona Ryder took over, and Lloyd sued Orion Pictures for breach of contract, receiving $175,000 in a settlement reached on the second day of the trial in July 1991.
- Producer Patrick Palmer said both Hallström and Oz had envisioned a darker tone for the film, and that at one point Hallström's version included the character Charlotte committing suicide.
- Rather than use an existing building, the production crew built a real 60-foot bell tower for the convent set, along with a cottage, in a rural area near North Easton.
- Mermaids did far better once it reached home video, becoming the 26th most-rented video in the United States for 1991.
