YMMV / Mermaids (1990)

• Adaptation Displacement: The movie is more well-known than the novel.
• Award-Bait Song: "It's In His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)" covered by Cher in the end credits.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: As Mrs. Flax wishes Charlotte well on her date, Mrs. Flax's youngest daughter Kate stumbles through the hallway with a pumpkin on her head, banging into things and eventually falling to the kitchen floor saying that she's a monster shark. It's adorable, but still serves no purpose to the plot.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Lou and Charlotte making an ocean- themed room for Kate.
  • Kate pretending to shave (using a comb) next to Lou. It's a cute scene, and it appears to be the first time we see one of the girls bonding with a positive male influence in their lives.
  • After a bombastic fight, Mrs. Flax and Charlotte finally open up to each other, and have an actual heart-to-heart discussion, something they've never done as mother and daughter.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At the time of the film's release, Winona Ryder was in a relationship with Johnny Depp (which soon ended). A decade later, Christina Ricci, who played Ryder's little sister in the film, would co-star as Depp's love interest in Sleepy Hollow (1999) and The Man Who Cried (2000).
  • Lydia Deetz and Wednesday Addams as sisters!
  • At the costume party, Lou (Bob Hoskins) was dressed as a pirate. He would later go on to play the pirate Smee in director Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991).
  • After she kisses Joe, Charlotte says she should be "burned at the stake." Winona Ryder would later star in The Crucible as a girl accusing others of being witches during the Salem witch hysteria. It is often erroneously believed that accused persons at Salem were burned at the stake. In 1987, Cher had starred as a witch in The Witches of Eastwick, which, like this movie and The Crucible was set in New England.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The scene with the angel statues looking down on Charlotte in the bell tower are a little unnerving, complete with Staggered Zoom and Scare Chord.
  • Kate stumbling around intoxicated and collecting rocks at night when she falls and almost drowns in a river.
• Retroactive Recognition: Charlotte's kid sister is Christina Ricci.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Kate almost drowning.
  • Charlotte crying and begging her unconscious little sister Kate not to die.
  • Rachel's tearful monologue to a unconscious Kate as she recovers in the hospital.
  • Everything to do with Charlotte and her Disappeared Dad.
  Charlotte: One day he'll come back. I just hope he can find us.
  • Charlotte and everyone in town mourning over President Kennedy's assassination.
• Values Dissonance: Given the movie's 1960s setting, not a single eye is batted over 15-year-old Charlotte dating and later losing her virginity to 26-year-old Joe. Nowadays due to the age of consent in many states ranging from 16-18 years old it's very likely that Joe could be charged with having sex with a minor (even at the time, the age of consent was 16 in Massachusetts where it's set - which doesn't mean it was always enforced, then or now). In the novel the gap is wider still, with Charlotte being 14 and Joe being 29.

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