MOVIE · 1985
The Purple Rose of Cairo
ComedyFantasyRomance82 min
During the Great Depression, New Jersey waitress Cecilia lives for the movies; then one night the suave archaeologist in her favorite picture steps off the screen and into the theater. Mia Farrow is Cecilia, using the local cinema to escape a bleak marriage and an unsteady life, while Jeff Daniels brings an old-Hollywood glow to Tom Baxter, the fictional adventurer suddenly wandering through the real world. As their unlikely romance begins, the boundary between screen fantasy and everyday hardship starts to collapse, drawing in Cecilia’s husband, the baffled characters left behind in the film, and the studio scrambling to put its leading man back where he belongs.
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