Mermaids

Mermaids (1990)

Mom is many things... normal isn't one of them.

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.

Date of release
1990-12-14
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (630)
Runtime
1h 50m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Director
Richard Benjamin

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $20M
  • Based on: Mermaids

Mermaids is a 1990 American family comedy-drama film directed by Richard Benjamin, and starring Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Michael Schoeffling, and Christina Ricci in her film debut. Based on Patty Dann's 1986 novel of the same name, and set in 1963, its plot follows a neurotic teenage girl who moves with her wayward mother and younger sister to a small town in Massachusetts.

Production

Producers initially engaged Swedish director Lasse Hallström to direct the film as his English-language feature debut, but he left the project to direct Once Around (1991). They subsequently hired Frank Oz as a replacement, but he also abandoned the project after clashing with Cher and Winona Ryder. Ultimately, they hired Richard Benjamin to direct the film.

Producer Patrick Palmer commented that both Hallström and Oz had envisioned a darker tone for the film, and that at one point, Hallström's version of the film included Charlotte committing suicide.

Emily Lloyd was originally cast in the part of Charlotte Flax. She had begun shooting the film when Cher complained that she did not look enough like Charlotte to play her. Winona Ryder, who impressed both Cher and then-director Oz in Heathers (1988), was subsequently cast in the part.

Principal photography of the film began September 25, 1989 in Massachusetts, and completed on December 15 of that year. The Flax house exterior was built for the film in Coolidge Point near Manchester-by-the-Sea and downtown Rockport served as the fictional village of Eastport. In a rural area near North Easton, the production crew built a 60-foot (18 m) bell tower for the convent set as well as a cottage.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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