Mommie Dearest
by Frank Perry
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Diana Scarwid, Faye Dunaway, Howard Da Silva, Mara Hobel, Steve ForrestDirector: Frank Perry
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 129 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Paramount
Studio: Paramount
VHS Movie Reviews of Mommie Dearest
Movie Review: Without Dunaway this mind-numbing debacle would warrant no respect at all...
Summary: 2 Stars
Okay, so I'm not here to debate whether or not Christina Crawford's memoir was accurate or not, or whether or not this movie portrays Crawford in a light worthy of her because I never knew her and so I cannot judge. I hear people defend this film and its interpretation of the screen legend, and then I hear people ambush this film as if it were a production of the antichrist.
Fact remains that the film, regardless of authentic merit, is really bad.
That isn't to say that it isn't entertaining, for if I said that I'd be lying; but the film is far from a great movie. It is a camp classic, but the sad part is that that was not the films initial intent. No, this was supposed to be a dramatic representation of child abuse, and instead it became a nightmarish comedy. Every scene is over-the-top as is every performance. Honestly, it's only Faye Dunaway who walks away from this movie with her dignity (although I doubt she sees it that way) for her campy and outrageous performance is genuinely wonderful.
Forget the Razzie, I seriously would have nominated her for Oscar.
The film chronicles the tormented lives of young Christina and Christopher Crawford, the adopted children of Hollywood royalty, Joan Crawford. The early years were wonderful for Christina, but soon after the adoption of Christopher things began to change and Christina's life became one of fear and suffering. She was abused mentally, physically an emotionally. She was shipped off to a boarding school where her tyrannical mother continued to control her. She was used and manipulated and lied to and through it all she stood by her mother until her death, where Christina found out she was left with nothing.
Like I said, I'm not sure how much of this `horror' story is actually true, but whatever.
The film goes to great lengths to create conflict with every scene. Even the simplest of moments are flooded with outbursts or agitation. I don't think there is a single scene where a shady glance is not delivered or a harsh word is not spoken or an unnerving moment of manipulation is not displayed. This is one of the reasons the film is dreadfully mediocre, for it doesn't understand how to create a reality out of reality. It goes so far over-the-top, browbeating the audience with atrocities that even the actual events come off as a farce.
The acting is also a very sore spot. Diana Scarwid is terrible, as is Rutanya Alda and even young Mara Hobel. I tell you, only Dunaway understood how to work with the eccentricities. She's outlandish and over-the-top and campy as all get out but in a very deliberate and articulate way. She knew how to make a very unbelievable tyrant watchable and ultimately believable. Any other actress may have tanked this entire film and really cast it into obscurity, but thanks to Dunaway's inspired turn, this rather forgettable misstep became a camp classic that many adore to this day. The film as a whole may be a high D, but Dunaway herself is a solid A.
Summary of Mommie Dearest
The movie that made "No wire hangers!" a household phrase, Mommie Dearest is the very model of a modern "camp classic," so crazily outlandish that it's fascinating. Based on the scathing and scandalous tell-all bestseller by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of histrionic Hollywood movie queen Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest was billed in advance as a serious dramatic motion-picture biography. But it turned out to be something much, much weirder--a genuine Hollywood oddity that serves up a bizarre mixture of melodramatic trash and outrageous tragi-comedy. Joan Crawford won an Oscar for playing the role of the self-sacrificing mother, the woman who would do anything for her daughter, in Mildred Pierce. As depicted by Faye Dunaway (playing the hell out of the role as if she's determined to win another Oscar of her own, damn it!), her role as offscreen parent puts her in a league with big-time scary screen mommies such as Mrs. Bates in Psycho, and Angela Lansbury's ?ber-mom in The Manchurian Candidate. Dunaway's Crawford torments and terrorizes her adopted children in myriad ways--making them give away their own birthday gifts and rousting them from their beds for frantic after-midnight bathroom-scrubbing attacks. And when, after the death of her Pepsico chairman husband, Crawford tells the board of directors, "Don't f--- with me, fellas!" one is very much inclined to heed her warning. --Jim EmersonDrama VHS Video
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