Julia Roberts Mystic Pizza Overview
Julia Roberts Mystic Pizza. Mystic Pizza is a 1988 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Donald Petrie in his feature directorial debut, and starring Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor. It follows the coming-of-age of three young Portuguese-American friends who work at a pizza parlor in a seaside Connecticut town. The film received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert declaring at the time, “I have a feeling that Mystic Pizza may someday become known for the movie stars it showcased back before they became stars.” It marked Matt Damon’s film debut. Julia Roberts Mystic Pizza
Sisters Kat and Daisy Araújo and their friend Jojo Barbosa are Portuguese-American teenage girls working as waitresses at Mystic Pizza, a pizza parlor owned by Leona in the fishing town of Mystic, Connecticut.
Kat and Daisy are total opposites. Kat, the younger sister, is an aspiring astronomer working at the planetarium in the Whaling Museum of the Mystic Seaport, and Yale University accepted her on a partial scholarship. Kat works at the restaurant and as a babysitter to raise money for school. Daisy’s goal is to have as much fun as possible. Their mother is pleased with Kat, while often questioning Daisy’s life choices.
Daisy meets Charles, a rich young man at a bar. The two are immediately attracted to each other and begin a relationship, much to her mother’s dismay. At a family dinner, Charles’s relatives unintentionally make insensitive comments about Daisy’s ethnicity, and Charles overreacts. Daisy breaks up with him, accusing him of using her to rebel against his parents.
Kat finds herself infatuated with her employer Tim, an architect and Yale graduate, who hired her to babysit his four-year-old daughter Phoebe while his wife works in England. A relationship ultimately develops between them that she believes to be love, and they have sex. However, when his wife returns, Kat’s illusions are shattered. Daisy consoles her devastated sister, and they bond.
Jojo fainted at her wedding to Bill because she had cold feet about making a lifetime commitment. Nonetheless, she wants to continue having sex with Bill until she is ready to be married. Bill eventually breaks up with her because she will not make a commitment.
A famous television food critic called “The Fireside Gourmet” unexpectedly visits Mystic Pizza. As Kat, Daisy, Jojo, and Leona watch from the counter, he takes a few bites of one pizza slice, jots notes in his notebook, and leaves after paying the check. His approval can do wonders for a restaurant, but they are not optimistic. However, a few days later he gives the pizzeria his highest rating, calling the pizza “superb”. The restaurant phone immediately starts ringing, with Leona laughing as she informs the caller that no reservations are needed.
In the end, Tim brings Phoebe to Mystic Pizza because she wants to say goodbye to Kat. Tim gives her a check to help cover her tuition expenses, but she tears it up; she later accepts a loan from Leona. Jojo finally marries Bill, and Daisy and Charles reconcile at the wedding. The film ends with the three girls overlooking the water from the restaurant’s balcony, reminiscing about their time together and wondering about the future.
Roberts was born on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, to Betty Lou Bredemus and Walter Grady Roberts. She is of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. Her father was a Baptist, her mother a Catholic, and she was raised Catholic. Her older brother Eric Roberts (born 1956), from whom she was estranged for several years until 2004, older sister Lisa Roberts Gillan (born 1965), and niece Emma Roberts, are also actors. She also had a younger half-sister named Nancy Motes.
Roberts’s parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing in theatrical productions for the United States Armed Forces. They later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, off Juniper Street in Midtown. They ran a children’s acting school in Decatur, Georgia, while they were expecting Julia. The children of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. attended the school; Walter Roberts served as acting coach for their daughter, Yolanda. As a thank-you for his service running the only racially integrated theater troupe in the region and due to the Roberts’ financial difficulties, Mrs. King paid Mrs. Roberts’s hospital bill when Julia was born.
Her parents married in 1955. Her mother filed for divorce in 1971; the divorce was finalized in early 1972. From 1972, Roberts lived in Smyrna, Georgia, where she attended Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School, Griffin Middle School, and Campbell High School. In 1972, her mother married Michael Motes, who was abusive and often unemployed; Roberts despised him. The couple had a daughter, Nancy, who died at 37 on February 9, 2014, of an apparent drug overdose. The marriage ended in 1983, with Betty Lou divorcing Motes on cruelty grounds; she had stated that marrying him was the biggest mistake of her life. Roberts’s own father died of cancer when she was ten.
Roberts wanted to be a veterinarian as a child. She played the clarinet in her school band. After graduating from Smyrna’s Campbell High School, she attended Georgia State University but did not graduate. She later headed to New York City to pursue a career in acting. Once there, she signed with the Click Modeling Agency and enrolled in acting classes.
Julia Roberts Mystic Pizza
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