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How others will see it. Oscar came calling for Cher, an indication that Hollywood respected this film. Maybe it was because Moonstruck is stocked with Italian-American characters, none of whom belong to a crime syndicate. Also, the median age of these characters is 60. Older actors with good supporting roles are as rare as July snowflakes within box office bonanzas. As the Italians used to say back in the colosseum days, "We who are about to die salute you."
Part of the charm of Moonstruck is that the women really control things. Cher and Dukakis run their own lives. Also, these characters have known each other for decades, and that leads to non-verbal understandings and mock dramatics well implied by the dialogue.
How I felt about it. The rising star here isn't Cher, whose career crested with this movie. Cher's signature line used to be "I've Got You, Babe," back when she made the unwatchable Good Times. With Moonstruck, her line should be, "You've come a long way baby." One can imagine that Cher's eyes nearly popped out when she read the script. "How much will you pay me? I'll take it. I would have taken the role for a dollar."
Nicolas Cage is the actual rising star. He also make Raising Arizona in 1987, and although he'll always be Francis Ford Coppola's nephew to me, there's no question that as a comic actor, he has his moments. Certainly, his deadpan mouth and wild eyes provide a natural combination for comedy, and although he keeps making crummy action movies, comedy is his true niche. He's better as a dufus than as a tough guy.
Cage has the best moment in Moonstruck. Cher questions the "bad blood" between Nicolas Cage and Aiello, and the unpredictable Cage explodes. "I don't care! I ain't no freakin' monument to justice! I LOST MY HAND! I LOST MY BRIDE!" Later, the Stanley Kowalski-like Cage shows up in a suit at the opera, a sign that even good movies prefer romance over reality.
Opera is all about the quality of voice within a rigidly formal presentation. An opera is equivalent to gathering great painters, given them crayons and a coloring book, and telling them that they can't draw outside the lines. This excess of structure is the antithesis of the Cage character.
The theme of infidelity is re-used several times within Moonstruck. The upshot is, it's okay for Cher to cheat on her fiance with his own brother, because she loves Cage and not Aiello. However, it's not okay for Vincent Gardenia to see another woman behind Olympia Dukakis' back, even if Gardenia may not actually be sleeping with this other woman. It's different because Dukakis still loves Gardenia. In other words, it's love that really counts, instead of ego, or even loyalty. But remember, it's only a movie.