In the last days before first-year move-in, when my dreams of Yale were still fanciful and blurry, I watched Mystic Pizza. The rom-com follows the lives and loves of three young waitresses — Jojo, Kat and her sister Daisy — on the threshold of girlhood. But the main character of the movie is the quaint seafaring town of Mystic, CT itself. The rustic parlor perched atop the hill, where the girls begrudgingly sling pizzas and buss tables. The docks where Jojo spars with her on-and-off-again fiance as his boat pulls out of the canal. The shingle style seaside cottages where Kat prances around with a married architect; the tree-lined, one-lane parkways through which Daisy and her fling drive his daddy’s red Porsche. The place itself is scintillating with the sort of New England life that makes you want to throw on flip flops and head downtown on a Vespa.
February 23, 2024