:
Faye Dunaway,
Faye Dunaway,
Diana Scarwid,
more...
:
Frank Perry,
Frank Perry
see all cast/crew...
: 
: Paramount
: Drama, Biopics
: 128 min.
: English, French
: English
see additional details...
This title is currently out of print.
|
|
When her adoptive mother Joan Crawford died in 1977, erstwhile actress/author Christina Crawford and her brother Christopher were left out of Joan Crawford's will, "for reasons which are well known to them." Industryites have suggested that it may have been this posthumous act of rejection rather than an alleged lifetime of parental abuse that inspired Christina Crawford to pen her scathing autobiography Mommie Dearest. The 1981 film version of this tome was evidently meant to be taken seriously, but the operatic direction by Frank Perry and the over-the-top portrayal of Joan Crawford by Faye Dunaway (whose makeup is remarkable) has always seemed to inspire loud laughter whenever and where-ever the film is shown. According to the film (and the book that preceded it), Joan Crawford was a licentious, child-beating behemoth, who stalked and postured through life as though it was one of her own pictures-more Strait-jacket than Mildred Pierce. This is the film with the notorious "wire coat hanger" scene, just in case you need a reminder. Surprisingly, one emerges from Mommie Dearest with more sympathy for the monstrous but intensely vulnerable Crawford than for her whining daughter (played as an adult by Diana Scarwid, and as a child by Mara Hobel). Our favorite scene: Joan Crawford dazedly replacing her ailing daughter in the cast of a daytime TV soap opera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
|
| Over the top
by Amahcuo
December 18, 2006 - 3:59 PM PST
|
|
|
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful
|
| This film is completely sad and scary to me, not in the way of a "serious" drama, as some supporters feel, but more in the spirit of camp and thriller films....This is actually FORTUNATE, as the acting and direction fittingly flare! What else could be done? [There are other films, some even better, that deal more suitably with child abuse and the nuisance of being famous.] But this is Joan Crawford here, and MOMMIE DEAREST is flawless. |
| good, twisted fun that lessened the pain of my own childhood.
by blindswordsman
August 8, 2005 - 3:48 PM PDT
|
|
|
1 out of 4 members found this review helpful
|
| you *must* watch this film or i will beat you with a wire hanger. and don't let me catch you making out with some guy at that fancy private school i shipped you off to. oh, while i'm busy yelling at you--go fix a drink for my male companion for the evening, will you? there's a good girl. now say "i love you, mommie dearest". sick sick sick. loved it. |
| True/Not True
by randomcha
June 6, 2005 - 9:24 AM PDT
|
|
|
4 out of 4 members found this review helpful
|
| ?Mommie Dearest? has gotten an unfair reputation through decades of cable TV repeats and hearsay drag queen re-enactments as an over-the-top campy melodrama. Not true. The film takes itself very seriously and is meticulously crafted; it does not exaggerate itself with overripe dialogue, florid music or quick cutting. Seen on its own, the film is actually a vivid and disturbing examination of child abuse, the perils of being a ?star? and of being the child of a star. It?s about how a child can grow up at the mercy of a vulnerable and disturbed woman, loving her and hating her as an adult. At its center is a no-holds-barred performance/recreation of Joan Crawford by Faye Dunaway. She plays her as a woman so dependant on acting as a coping mechanism that it all but consumes her, and in the end she has erased all distinction between her creation of Joan as self-made success story and perfect mother and the real human being. Combined with make-up/hair design that?s remarkable and she IS Joan. Frank Perry?s direction, just as in ?Diary of a Mad Housewife,? employs a strategy of restraint and straightforwardness that makes Joan?s outbursts of aggression of violence that much more unsettling. His use of the music score, by Henry Mancini no less, is subdued. This further confounds an easy emotional release on the part of the audience, most notably during the infamous ?wire hanger? sequence. Perry also takes the risky approach of telling a story which spans thirty-odd years without using the obvious devices of montages or narration to ground us in the passage of time. The result is that we experience the events in the film as Christina does, as a string of memories: each scene is like a fragment which blurs into the next, character?s ages seem vague, everything runs together in a stream of consciousness. The casting of unknowns and character actors in the supporting roles also helps the film?s overall believability. Despite decades of parody, ?Mommie Dearest? still stands proudly on it own, much like Joan Crawford herself; it deserves to be looked at with fresh eyes. |
|
| >> more reviews |
|
GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.26)
106 Votes
add to list 
|
|
|
Your cart
sps8146
Alicat
© 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. Portions of content provided by All Movie Guide®,
a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.