This Underrated '80s Romantic Comedy Takes a Terrifying Turn Into an Apocalyptic Thriller

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Miracle Mile

By Thomas Butt

Published Jan 30, 2025

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Upon hearing about the audacious concept of Miracle Mile, the egregiously overlooked dark romantic comedy-turned-apocalyptic thriller, you'll be annoyed that you've somehow gone this long without ever knowing about this extraordinary hidden gem. The 1989 film by Steve De Jarnatt delivers on its bold genre-shifting template. Starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham, Miracle Mile has seen its share of reappraisal online, but it is due to experience a reclamation as a text representing the dual side of the same coin in America in the 1980s. One minute, you think you have discovered the love of your life, but after one phone call, you'll be forced to reckon with the end of the world due to a nuclear attack. Even with the threat of total annihilation, Miracle Mile demonstrates that paranoia can destroy us all before one bomb is even dropped.

'Miracle Mile' Takes a Sudden Shift From Romance to Apocalyptic Nightmare

Anthony Edwards standing in a riot in 'Miracle Mile' — Image via Hemdale Film Corporation

The release of Miracle Mile in theaters in the U.S. coincided with the end of the Cold War in 1989. However, no peace treaty can ever fully ease the inherent paranoia surrounding the existence of nuclear weapons that are controlled by the most influential people in the world. With the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster occurring a few years prior, nuclear panic was on everyone's mind. This anxiety runs through Miracle Mile, but you would never guess that from the film's opening chapter. A bumbling jazz musician, Harry Washello (Edwards), believes he has discovered the girl of his dreams, Julie Peters (Winningham). After a meet-cute, they plan a late-night date after Julie gets off work. Arriving late to the diner where she works, Harry answers a call in a phone booth, erroneously placed by an unknown figure warning him of incoming all-out nuclear warfare before being gunned down. After diner patrons confirm this threat, mass hysteria ensues, as Harry will not stop until he makes it to this life — or the afterlife — with his lover.

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It takes a special touch to master the art of genre and tonal shifting. Celebrated directors like Jonathan Demme and Bong Joon-ho have earned their stripes as auteurs by their ability to abruptly jump from light comedy to disturbing chills. Director Steve De Jarnatt's filmography is quite thin and bereft of highly-regarded films. Even if he was a one-hit wonder, being able to dine out on the brilliance of Miracle Mile is something most directors dream of. In the opening chapter, a lighthearted and intimate portrayal of a lonely jazz musician who couldn't find true love if it fell in his lap, De Jarnatt pokes fun at the archetype of the down-on-his-luck young man that was prevalent in the '80s. After meeting Julie, a restrained take on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, we suspect that the world is already destined to punish Harry, as the loss of power in his hotel causes him to oversleep, but no nightmare can prepare him for the hell on earth that awaits him.

'Miracle Mile' Is About Searching for Love Amid the Panic and Dread of Nuclear Warfare

Taking place on the titular street in Los Angeles, Miracle Mile evokes the Kafka-esque mania of Martin Scorsese's After Hours, which also follows a disillusioned man heading downtown late at night for romantic prospects. The apocalyptic panic that ensues, featuring a shootout with the police at a gas station and a desperate search for a capable helicopter pilot, carries a whiff of the darkly comic edge of the diner sequence when Harry first shares the news of a potential attack. The film shows that panic and unrest will compromise the fate of humanity well before a nuclear missile strike. While De Jarnatt opts for a heightened visual aesthetic and tonal calibration, the sentiment of unbridled hysteria and confusion seeps through the screen. Modulating both spectrums of the film is Tangerine Dream, the acclaimed electronic music band behind the score of Sorcerer and Thief. The group's indelible score captures the innocence and wonder of the first half with the eerie dread of the second.

Miracle Mile could've easily coasted on the virtuosity of its stark tonal pivot, but Steve De Jarnatt expands upon these contrasting emotional modes by examining our relationship towards love and death. Early in the story, you sense that Harry is beginning to reel without a proper love in his life. Without one, one could theorize that his listless life is collapsing in real-time. As the ambiguity surrounding the threatened attack lingers, you begin wondering if the phone call he received was a prank and if all the madness was a result of Harry's existential panic about the world. In the end, Harry can't imagine a life without Julie, even in the face of total nuclear decimation.