Usually, I am uninterested in movies starring Cher.  I do not know why.  She made plenty of them during the 1980s and into the 1990s, but I cannot recall seeing many of them.  As such, I never knew about Mermaids (1990).  I put it on because it had the appearance of a coming-of-age film, which I typically enjoy.  Having Christina Ricci and Winona Ryder in it helped.  What I was not prepared for was the Catholic imagery throughout the proceedings.  It is full of stereotypes, but there is a lot of material for a Catholic reviewer.  I hope you enjoy my presentation of it.

The first image we are presented with in Mermaids is of a person swimming.  That person is nine-year-old Kate Flax (Christina Ricci) competing in a swim meet.  It is 1963, and she lives in Oklahoma with her old sister, fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax (Winona Ryder), and their mother, Rachel Flax (Cher), who Charlotte calls Mrs. Flax.  Charlotte is the narrator, and she is Catholic despite Rachel saying they are Jewish.  This is part of the reason Charlotte refers to Rachel as Mrs. Flax.  Rachel likes to remind Charlotte of this fact at inopportune times, like when she is praying in front of her altar with a Nativity scene on it.  This is when I knew I was in for something special.  As devout as she wants to be, she is contrasted by Rachel, who is divorced and trying to remain as young as possible.  This involves going out with her married boss, but she is incensed when he wants to go on a business trip without her.  Her solution, as with most problems, is to move their family, picking a random place on the map.  That place is Eastport, Massachusetts.  Two salient things happen as the Flax family pulls up to their new home.  The first is meeting Joseph “Joe” Peretti (Michael Schoeffling).  The second is related to the first: Joe is the caretaker for a convent up the road, making the nuns their nearest neighbors.  Charlotte is immediately smitten with Joe, thinking what she comes to believe to be impure thoughts, which are a threat to her desire to become a member of a female religious order.  She spends a lot of time obsessing over him, while also mentally beating herself up for lust.  Nonetheless, she asks him if she can accompany him to the lake while he fishes.  At the same time, Rachel goes out with Louis “Lou” Landsky (Bob Hoskins), the owner of the shoe store in town.  Lou treats Rachel well, and they spend a lot of time together.  Her daughters also like him, and he comes to treat them as his own.  This is the state of thing until it gets close to Thanksgiving.  If you know your history, you might know what happens near this point in time: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Like many others at this moment in the past, Charlotte is devastated by the news and runs to the convent bell tower where she finds Joe.  They kiss, which is strange considering her age and he is twenty-five.  What stops her from going further is looking up at the images of saints on the walls above the bell.  She spends the next few days being not just angry at herself, but thinking she has become pregnant with the Lord’s child from the one smooch.  She even goes to the doctor at one point to be tested, who explains that she is still a virgin.  She wants to talk to her mom, but does not know how to begin.  Rachel does not help the situation by being emotionally unavailable.  Instead, Charlotte takes the car and drives away.  She runs out of gas in front of a random house, who take her in while they look for her parents.  It is Lou that comes to get her.  Indeed, Lou is coming to think of Rachel and her kids as his family, even though he is not technically divorced.  She does nothing to disabuse him of this notion, asking him to watch the girls as she is called away for an evening for work.  While mom is away, Lou and the kids paint one of his rooms to look like the bottom of the ocean.  He also prepares a meal for them.  As Rachel is sitting down with everyone, she begins to suspect that he wants more from her than she wants to give.  Later, she accuses him of using her children as a path to her heart.  He is indignant at this suggestion, but agrees to take her to a New Year’s Eve costume party.  This, by the way, is where we get the title for the film, as she dresses as the eponymous creature.  After kissing at midnight, she asks if he wants to come back home with her, but he says no.  Instead, unable to start her car, she gets a ride from Joe.  With Charlotte watching from inside, Rachel kisses Joe.  An enraged Charlotte comes outside wanting to know why Joe did it, while Rachel downplays the gravity of the situation.  It leads to outright rebellion by Charlotte.  The next day, with Rachel once more out with Lou, Charlotte decides to dress like her mother and have a little wine.  She offers some to Kate, telling the kid to have just a sip, but the girl drinks more than a little.  To pass the time, they decide to walk up to the convent.  Once there, Charlotte wants to go into the tower, while Kate goes to look for rocks.  At the top, Charlotte finds Joe, and they have sex.  As this takes place, Kate falls into the pond and is unable to extract herself.  It is not until the commotion caused by the nuns going to rescue Kate that Charlotte understands what is happening.  Charlotte is devastated, but the relief of Kate surviving is tempered when Rachel comes home to collect some things for Kate.  Charlotte and Rachel finally have it out, with mom eventually realizing that her oldest daughter is starting to turn out just like Rachel.  They come to an understanding, even managing to stay in their new town despite Charlotte’s new notoriety.  Lou remains in Rachel’s life, while Joe has moved to California, but staying in touch with Charlotte.

The one aspect of Mermaids that makes me uncomfortable is the relationship between Charlotte and Joe.  There are some who will say that it was 1963 and things were different at that time.  That is not a sufficient excuse for statutory rape.  Aside from this, I wish Charlotte had remained devoted to becoming a nun.  Rather, by the end, she says that she becomes obsessed with Greek mythology, and, of course, Rachel reminds her daughter they are not Greek.  In other words, sadly, she has given up on the Faith.  It could be said that it had been a phase for her, which has some truth to it.  However, having a relationship with God is not something that should be a part of your life at one point, then cast aside at another.  At the same time, one can understand why a young woman of fifteen might not have a complete understanding of the Faith.  Had she understood the Faith, we might have seen her going to Mass.  There is not a single of scene of her inside a church.  The one opportunity she has to talk to Mother Superior (Jan Miner), Charlotte freezes, not knowing what to say.  What would have helped would have been some spiritual guidance, particularly regarding her feelings towards Joe.  There is a perception that the Catholic Church condemns sexual attraction, thinking it is devil’s work.  Like most stereotypes, this takes a kernel of truth and blows it out of proportion.  We should be careful with how we handle what are perfectly natural feelings and thoughts.  It is right to say that she is feeling lust for Joe, and that can be sinful.  At the same time, if God did not imbue us with an inclination towards such activities, there would be no human race.  It is what we do with those inclinations that separates us from the animals.  God calls sex to a higher purpose.  It is not simply an act of rebellion to get back at mother.  Any of the nuns at the convent could have explained this to Charlotte.

Then again, it probably should have been Rachel to have explained this to Charlotte during the climactic moment in Mermaids.  Rachel jokes that Charlotte’s sin has obviated the need for the classic talk about the birds and the bees. Nonetheless, I think there is some value in watching the film, if for no other reason than to get a sense of what not to do.