Working at a Pizza restaurant, three young teenager girls, who have been recently graduated from high school struggle against navigating the true meanings of life, Friendship, and love, as they meet the best partners for them.
Thanks to sensitive direction by Petrie, the result is a thoroughly involving movie that doesn't resort to violence, sex or schmaltz to pack an emotional punch.
Coming-of-age story flirts with melodrama but is saved by wonderful performances.
Washington Post
January 01, 2000
You get the general sense that the actors -- particularly Annabeth Gish and, though he is hardly featured, D'Onofrio (who was last seen as the troubled recruit in "Full Metal Jacket") -- are better than their material, but this is scant compensation.
"Mystic Pizza" does create the feeling of a small resort town and the people who live there and, amazingly, given the familiar nature of a lot of the material, it nearly always keeps us interested.
The only novelty of this familiar small-town coming-of-age saga is that its women are Portugueste-American, but it's laced with humor and well-acted, and the gorgeous-looking Julia Roberts shows strong potential for becoming a major star.