Movie Review – Miracle Mile

Miracle Mile (1988)
Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt

Part of the curse the United States put upon itself by developing and then dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan is that they had set a new precedent. In places like Dresden, they employed similar tactics with less, but still devastating weapons. Pre-industrial war had always affected civilian populations, but this was something new. The atomic bomb wasn’t just a tool of destruction; it was mass annihilation. It was genocide contained in a small package. Once you use something like that on another society, the U.S. would inevitably live in paranoia that it would be done to them. They forgot the part that few societies on Earth are as profoundly sociopathic as ours.

Harry (Anthony Edwards) meets Julie (Mare Winningham) at the La Brea Tar Pits and falls madly in love. After spending the day together, they agree to meet again at midnight, but a power failure causes Harry’s alarm clock to never go off. By the time he wakes up and arrives at the all-night diner where Julie works, she’s already headed home. After trying to call her from the payphone outside, Harry answers it when it rings, thinking it might be her. Instead, it’s a frantic man who is warning that nuclear war is imminent. He works at a government facility, and before he can share the details, shots are fired. Harry can’t determine whether he’s been pranked but eventually shares this information with the other patrons and kitchen staff. His night is about to get much worse.

The United States lived in a state of nuclear paranoia for a good forty-plus years. While there’s still tension drummed up around nations like Iran or North Korea, it’s pretty clear that those countries have no interest in sparking a war but want to make it clear they have the means to defend themselves should the cause arise. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, it became much more challenging for U.S. institutions to keep up that fervor, which peaked during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Miracle Mile is one of the films just before the end of the Cold War, where the threat of nuclear apocalypse is invoked.

This film has one of the wildest tonal shifts I’ve ever seen, and the filmmaker made it work. Everything up to the phone call feels like your typical 1980s rom-com, and then a cold sweat appears on Harry’s brow. This has become something else. When confronted with the potential end of his life and world, Harry desperately wants to get to Julie because that’s who he wants to be with if it happens. In a certain way, that is a very endearing thing. In the face of annihilation, Harry chooses to be with the person he loves.

However, if that’s all this movie was, I don’t think it would stand out as much. The constant hopelessness in the film serves as a counterpoint to the warmer sentiments. Getting to Julie feels like an impossible task, and when Harry finally does, he attempts to find a way for them to get out of Los Angeles as soon as possible. He overhears about a helicopter that would taxi people from the top of a building downtown to LAX. The couple gets there, but there’s no pilot. He leaves Julie on the roof to go search for one. When he finds one, she’s not on the roof anymore.

There is a recurring nightmare I used to have when I was younger. People were outside of our family’s house in the Tennessee woods. In the nightmare, I would run around the house, ensuring every window was closed, and the door was locked. But upon double-checking, I’d find some that were still unlocked. That sort of sinking dread is what Miracle Mile conveys to its audience. The original score by Tangerine Dream adds to that ethereal nightmare nature. As much as you feel you have a firm grip on things, they slip through your fingers the minute you look away.

Miracle Mile is walking a surreal tightrope, balancing its love conquers all sentiments with the devastating horror of impending nuclear destruction. There are moments when it becomes so unreal, a neon-soaked hyperreality. When character actor Brian Thompson shows up as a helicopter pilot, Harry happens to find it even weirder. I associate Thompson with the many monstrous, alien, and bad guy roles he’s played, especially in the 1980s. 

The closer we get to the ending, the clearer it becomes that getting out of this situation feels like an impossibility. There’s simply not enough time, and the various avenues of escape are vanishing. It’s undoubtedly thrilling..but. This is not a more serious take on nuclear war, like the horrific British film Threads. This is a Hollywood take. It’s romanticized. It’s fantastical. It may end on a dark note, but in comparison, it also refuses to show the aftermath. That’s the thing about atomic bombs; even today, studios will not show you as opposed to Japanese productions. It’s a big bang at the end; we never have to face what comes after.