Mystic Pizza (1988)

and Three Refusals in One Summer

Three young women at a pizza place in a Connecticut fishing town, each saying no to something. What it teaches about being brought home to make a point, being left without a word, a check in place of an explanation, a timeline that isn't yours, and the sister who comes back.

Mystic Pizza (1988). Directed by Donald Petrie, from a story by Amy Holden Jones. Annabeth Gish as Kat Araújo, Julia Roberts as Daisy Araújo, Lili Taylor as JoJo Barboza, with Conchata Ferrell as Leona, Vincent D’Onofrio as Bill, William R. Moses as Tim, and Adam Storke as Charles.

“I would never use you to get at somebody.”

Daisy Araújo, to the rich boy who did.

This page belongs to Plot Twist. It is a refusal, and the gentle issue after the hard one before it, Fatal Attraction. It is also a friendship film, like Waiting to Exhale: three young women who work together at a pizza place in a Connecticut fishing town, and who, in one summer, each say no to something.

Like every entry on the Plot Twist page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. Nobody in this film is a villain. There are two men who treat the women badly in quiet, ordinary ways, and one who loves a woman and can’t wait for her, and three women who handle all of it better than most films let women handle anything.

The Story

Sisters Kat and Daisy Araújo and their friend JoJo Barboza are Portuguese-American waitresses at Mystic Pizza, owned by Leona. JoJo faints at her own wedding to Bill: she loves him, and she isn’t ready. She wants to keep seeing him without getting married yet. Bill, who wants a commitment, breaks up with her.

Kat, the younger sister, has been accepted to Yale on a partial scholarship, and works three jobs to pay for it. Daisy, the older one, wants to have fun. Daisy starts seeing Charles, a rich young man, to her mother’s dismay. At a dinner with his family, his relatives make comments about her being Portuguese, and Charles overreacts. Daisy breaks up with him, and tells him he used her to rebel against his parents.

Kat takes a job babysitting for Tim, an architect whose wife is working in England, and falls for him. They sleep together. The sisters fight: Kat criticizes Daisy’s love life, while Kat herself is involved with a married man. When Tim’s wife comes back, Tim turns away from Kat without a word. Daisy comforts her, and the sisters make up.

A famous television food critic visits Mystic Pizza, tastes a slice, and leaves without a word. Before Tim’s family leaves town, he gives Kat a check toward her tuition. She tears it up, just as the critic’s show gives the restaurant his highest rating. JoJo marries Bill, Kat accepts a loan from Leona, and Daisy and Charles make up at the wedding. The film ends with the three friends on the restaurant’s balcony, looking out at the water.

Mystic Pizza was Donald Petrie’s first feature as a director. Matt Damon has a small part in it.

What It Gets Right

A great deal. It takes working-class young women and their work seriously. It lets three friends be different, argue, and still show up for each other. It gives them an older woman, Leona, who keeps a business and a tradition, and who helps one of them pay for her future. And every one of its three stories ends with a woman making a choice, not being chosen.

What It Teaches

1. “You did that for yourself”

Charles takes Daisy home to meet his family. When they make remarks about her being Portuguese, he blows up at the table, and afterward he tells her he did it for her: “I couldn’t let ‘em do that to you.”

Daisy sees straight through it. “Me? You weren’t thinking of me. You did that for yourself.” He’d brought home his “poor Portagee girlfriend for dinner,” as she puts it, to shake up his family.

The Decoder’s Card 54, Trophy on the Shelf, is “Your image, not you, is the point.” Daisy was a statement Charles wanted to make to his parents. And her answer is one of the best in the series: “I would never use you to get at somebody... You’re not even good enough for me.”

2. “He didn’t even say a word to me”

Kat is young, bright and on her way to Yale. Tim is older, married, and her employer. They talk about books and listen to Mozart, and Kat believes it’s real. When his wife comes home, he doesn’t end it. He just stands there, and says nothing.

“He just stood there. He didn’t even say a word to me.”

The Decoder’s Card 50, The Final Discard, is “Abandonment without closure.” It’s worth saying plainly, too: a married man who employs a young woman, who lets her believe in a life with him, is the one who should have known better. Kat asks her sister the question almost everyone asks after this: “I just feel so stupid! Why does it hurt so much?” She wasn’t stupid. She was left without a word by someone who owed her several.

3. The check she tore up

Before Tim leaves town, he gives Kat a check toward her tuition. It would help. She tears it up.

A check in place of an explanation is still a way of not explaining. Kat refuses to be paid off for the silence. Then she takes a loan from Leona, a woman who has nothing to buy from her, and whose help comes with no silence attached.

4. “If he really loved me, he’d wait”

JoJo loves Bill, and wants the marriage and the children, “I just don’t want it now.” Bill wants a commitment, and when she won’t make it on his timeline, he leaves.

She says the honest, contradictory thing: “If he really loved me, he’d wait. But I guess if I really loved him, I’d marry him.” Both of those can be true. The film lets her take her time, and when she marries Bill at the end, it’s because she’s ready, not because she was pushed.

5. The sister who stayed

Kat and Daisy fight hard, and say terrible things to each other, and at one point Daisy slaps her. The film doesn’t pretend that’s nothing. But when Tim leaves Kat without a word, it’s Daisy who finds her crying, and Daisy who says, “It’s gonna be tough, but you’re gonna be alright.”

Kat’s answer is the most important line in the film: “No, please. Please, just stay with me.” Sometimes the person who drives you craziest is the one who comes back.

6. “Different clothes, same line”

Daisy’s mother worries about her, loudly. “When I was your age, you think they weren’t sniffin’ around after me? Different clothes, same line. Only I had sense.” Daisy hears the list underneath: “I curse, I’m stupid, I’m a slut.”

Her mother isn’t a villain either. “All I want is for you to make something of yourself,” she says, and later, “I’m just so worried about you.” But many daughters know that conversation: the warning that sounds like a verdict. Daisy’s refusal is quiet: “I’m not gonna go to Yale. You’re just gonna have to deal with that.” She gets to be the daughter she is.

Three Friends, Side by Side

	Waiting to Exhale (1995)	The First Wives Club (1996)	Mystic Pizza (1988)
Who they are	Four friends in Phoenix	Three women after divorce	Three young women at the start
What they refused	Waiting for the right man	Being replaced quietly	Being used, paid off, or rushed
What holds	The table where they talk	The three of them, singing	The balcony, and each other

Three friendship films in this series. In all three, whatever happens with the men, the women hold.

If You Grew Up on This

Many of us watched this with a best friend, and argued about which of the three we were. Nothing on this page asks you to stop loving it. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Have you ever been brought somewhere to make a point, and realized the point wasn’t you?
Has someone left you without a word, and let you think the silence was your fault?
Has anyone offered you money, or a favor, in place of an explanation?
Whose timeline were you on, when you said yes, or no?
Who is the friend, or sister, who drives you crazy, and always comes back?

Three women, one summer, three refusals. The pizza got the highest rating. So did they.

You’re the audience now. Who’s on your balcony?