‘They swore they’d never talk to each other until the day they died’
Blurring the lines between tender romance and apocalyptic nightmare is Steve De Jarnatt’s Miracle Mile, proving you can have the best of both worlds. After being lulled quite happily into a John Hughes-esque love-at-first-sight sequence, prepare to be utterly unprepared for the swift transition into end-of-days mayhem after one fateful call to a payphone.
Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham, who were both staples of 80s teen films (1), play Harry and Julie. Falling head-over-heels the first day they meet and convinced of the predestined power of fate, Harry spends the rest of the film trying to be with Julie, establishing the importance of time to the plot. Clocks are present in most scenes as a reminder of the real time action, building the anxiety and uncertainty. Before all hell breaks loose, there is a moment of haunting foreshadowing: a bird brings a cigarette that Harry has thrown away back to her nest which sends the other twigs up in flames, leaving the babies to cook in their shells… I’m just easing you in.
A semi-decent knowledge of the everyday fear of nuclear war that used to exist would certainly be helpful to understanding the reactions in the film. Even without it the automatic recognition of impending doom in the characters is enough to make anyone sympathetic to their terror. A study in America found that the majority of children growing up between the 50s and 70s regularly had nightmares about nuclear war, in fact the children of the later decades were even more resigned to the idea than their earlier counterparts (2). So on its release in 1988, there would be no one who saw it who didn’t immediately understand the horror they would feel too.
‘Is this your blood or mine?’
This film surely deserves 80s cult classic fame. It has everything! Action, romance, anarchy, laughs, suspense, the lot! I love the random selection of people who are saved from annihilation because they happened to be in that diner at 3am. Paranoia mounts when escape seems less and less plausible, but who can be sure it’s not all just an appalling hoax? To steal a quote from Roger Ebert’s review in 1989, “Much of the movie’s diabolical effectiveness comes from the fact that it never reveals, until the very end, whether the nightmare is real, or only some sort of tragic misunderstanding” (3).
Steve De Jarnatt spent the best part of 10 years trying to get it made (1), and thankfully didn’t settle for the Hollywood ending that might be expected. Despite being nominated for 4 awards, and winning 2, Miracle Mile lost money at the Box Office making a little over $1 million when the budget had reached nearly $4 million (4).
I was blown away watching this. The classic 80s score by Tangerine Dream enhances the romance and catastrophe on screen (5). The descent into utter chaos with no fear of consequences shows the most desperate extremes of human behaviour, at their ugliest and most heart-warming. Miracle Mile asks, when faced with the end of the world: how would you escape, who would you save and would you even want to know?
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Miracle Mile. (1988). Film. Steve De Jarnatt. Dir. USA: Miracle Mile Productions Inc.
- Ian Shultz. ‘Miracle Mile is an apocalyptic thriller that’s more relevant than ever’. Little White Lies. 15 Oct 2017. https://lwlies.com/articles/miracle-mile-cult-sci-fi-nuclear-war/
- Stephanie Buck. ‘Fear of nuclear annihilation scarred children growing up in the Cold War, studies later showed’. Timeline. 29 Aug 2017. https://timeline.com/nuclear-war-child-psychology-d1ff491b5fe0
- Roger Ebert. ‘Miracle Mile’. RogerEbert.com. 9 Jun 1989. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/miracle-mile-1989
- ‘Miracle Mile’. IMBD. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097889/?ref_=ttmi_tt
- Jonny Coleman. ‘Miracle Mile Is an L.A.-Set Apocalypse Love Story for the Ages’. Los Angeles Magazine. 25 Sep 2018. https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/miracle-mile/
Miracle Mile is only available to watch on Blu-Ray, as far as I know. See Find the Films for where you can buy it.
Cine-Blah 