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Mystic Pizza Review: Her first major film role didn't make Julia Roberts a star, but Mystic Pizza did make great use of the actress' earthy sensuality and onscreen charisma. Playing one of a trio of working-class young women in coastal New England, Roberts provided the va-va-voom to Lili Taylor's quirkiness and Annabeth Gish's quiet intensity. Decidedly matriarchal and working-class in its depictions of these young characters' lives, the film uses the pizza parlor of kindly Leona (Conchata Ferrell) as a symbol of both the bond of female friendship and the joys and limitations of life in a seaside resort town. Mystic Pizza splits its storytelling time equally between the romantic entanglements of its three heroines, but a subtle class consciousness colors even these stock scenarios: Kat (Gish) glimpses the dissatisfactions of Ivy League privilege in the marriage of her wealthy boss; Daisy (Roberts) has to reconcile her boyfriend's blue-blooded loafing with her own hard-working existence; and Jojo (Taylor) has to choose between a comfortable marriage and an uncertain future. Alternately cheery, somber, and melodramatic, the sometimes uneven Mystic Pizza nonetheless serves up an engaging, if misty-eyed, slice of small-town life. Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

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