There's no point in recounting the many production problems and personal hostilities which plagued the filming of Mermaids: the end result is all that matters. Set in the 1960s, the film details the relationship between an unorthodox, unmarried vagabond mother (Cher), and her two daughters. The 15-year-old (Winona Ryder), continually embarrassed by her flamboyant mother, wants to be the world's greatest Catholic; the nine-year-old (Christina Ricci) would be satisfied with becoming the world's champion swimmer. Moving with her family to New England, the older daughter falls in love from afar with the groundskeeper (Michael Schoeffling) from a nearby convent, while Mom takes up with a lonely salesman (Bob Hoskins). Mermaids is perceptively adapted from the warmly comic novel by Patty Dann.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide