Mommie Dearest (1981)

I've had a busy July, lots going on and unfortunately movie watching has had to take a bit of a backseat. But I'm back again, at least for the moment and I'll be straight up honest with you straight out of the gate; I have absolutely no interest in watching this movie. There are movies on here that I have covered that I really did not want to watch. There are movies that I wish I hadn't watched. And then there are movies that I would otherwise be broadly indifferent to and I think that is where Mommie Dearest pretty much pigeonholes itself. I will confess to not being the most fore fronted expert on the career of Joan Crawford. I've probably watched something she was in before now but I can't say she really sticks out to me as an actress that I particularly look for, or am particularly a fan of. That's not to say I think she's utter tripe, because I can at least acknowledge that her reputation as a moviestar precedes her enough that I recognise the name. But she isn't anyone particularly special to me. Potentially also because I was born about 20 years too late to really appreciate her I guess. Not that any of that really matters though to be honest because from what I can gather Mommie Dearest is about as divorced from reality as I am from the intimate work of Joan Crawford anyway... and it was largely derided on it's release in 1981 for being "an extremely strange movie" which I think is putting it generously. Roger Ebert also famously said: "I can't imagine who would want to subject themselves to this movie." And the answer is me Roger. Me. 

Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is a Hollywood Actress and obsessive compulsive when it comes to the cleanliness of her home... who longs to be a mother as her career begins to wain. After initial attempts at adoption fall flat on their face she enlists the help of Hollywood lawyer and part-time lover; Greg Savitt (Steve Forrest) who pulls some strings and gets Joan the baby she so desperately craves; a girl who she calls Christina (Mara Hobel). Fast forward... some... years... and Joan adopts another child, a boy who she names Christopher, however the cracks in Joan and Christina's relationship begin to develop when Joan, wrestling to get her career back on track, pushes her too hard - wanting her not to become a spoiled Hollywood child - and as a result becomes disappointed and despondent when Christina struggles to live up to her expectations. After learning she has scored a role in a major motion picture with MGM studios, Joan goes to find Christina to tell her the news, only to discover Christina in her room, wearing her things, pretending to be an actress. Joan goes into a total meltdown and cuts off chunks of Christina's hair in frenzied rage. And after Joan takes offence to what she perceives as Greg using her to curry favour with Louis B. Mayer (Howard da Silva) of MGM the pair fight which results in Greg leaving her. Joan responds by carving him out of all the photos they have together. She even enlists the nanny into helping her... but the act doesn't go unnoticed by Christina who opines: "if she doesn't like you, she can make you disappear." After attending a pre-arranged meeting with Louis. B. Mayer, Joan is forced into leaving MGM studios after being branded "Box Office poison", a decision presumably made before the meeting was even held and in a fit of rage after the meeting Joan proceeds to butcher the garden with a pair of hedge sheers. Even going so far as to having the children woken up in the middle of the night to help her clear away the damage! As Joan begins the struggle to get her career back on track, Christina; despite wanting to help, begins to rebel against her mother and although things start to improve when Joan takes an award for her leading role in Mildred Pierce, another meltdown occurs when, in the middle of the night, Joan discovers a wire hanger in Christina's closet; there is a strict no wire hanger policy in the Crawford house... and in response Joan in a fit of rage, pulls all Christina's dresses off the rail, chucking them all on the floor, and then proceeds to beat her with one of the wire hangers. She then proceeds to go into a rage about the state of the bathroom floor, smashing Christina with a tin of bathroom cleaner in the process. After Christina interrupts Joan and Ted Gelber (Michael Edwards) getting a bit too intimate, Joan sends Christina away to Chadwick Country Boarding School, despite Christina's reservations and protestations (hey, trust me girl you will be better off...). Fast forward many years later and Christina, now a teenager (Diana Scarwid) is still suffering under the domineering ways of her mother, who orders her meal for her when they meet for a restaurant date between term time, and when Joan suspects Christina's rebellious side is being nurtured whilst away at school as opposed to quelled, she has Christina back for the weekend and sets her to work as the new housemaid. It's there that Joan reveals, through tears and sobbing, that she lost her contract with Warner Bros and that they are having financial difficulties. She tells Christina that she has arranged for her to go on a work scholarship program, and later that evening when Christina discovers her passed out and lifeless on the sofa she fears the worst until Joan's live-in nanny just explains that she is drunk, Christina witnessing it for the first time. When Christina gets caught kissing a boy at the stables, presumably where she works, and gets reported to the school head for it, Joan pulls her out of the school in yet another fit of rage, and as soon as they are home, Joan lies in front of a reporter friend that Christina was expelled which leads to the pair fighting when Christina refuses to back down. When she questions why Joan adopted her, and she lets it slip that she believes it was for a little extra publicity, Joan flies into a rage and almost strangles her to death. Christina then gets sent away to Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy. A Catholic all girls school where she is forbidden to have any access to the outside world. Whilst away, Joan marries Alfred Steele (Harry Goz), the CEO of PepsiCola. Presumably some years later, Christina then leaves the school... all of this happens within like 3 scenes, in 10 minutes. Life moves fast in this movie... and returns home to discover her new father, and that Joan and Alfred are essentially having their own mansion built. Mostly on Alfred's dime. Alfred promptly goes and dies (off camera) and Joan resists motions by the PepsiCola board to remove her as a Director, with the board eventually succumbing. In her advancing years, Joan pays a visit to Christina's apartment where she confesses that she, Christina, is struggling to find a role but has an audition for a part in a soap opera. Joan bestows upon her a gift - a set of diamonds and pearls given to her Alfred and for the most part the pair appear to have put their difficult relationship behind them... Christina goes on to win the role in the soap, but when she is struck down with an ovarian tumour, Joan brokers a deal to stand in for her whilst Christina recovers, much to Christina's dismay. And when Joan appears on the soap she is visibly drunk and stumbling. Joan eventually succumbs and dies of cancer (off screen) and Christina appears to have made peace with their past, however at the reading of the will Christina and Christopher discover they have been effectively disinherited from the will, with Christopher proclaiming "as usual she always has the last word" and Christina declaring "does she?" which seems to suggest this being the impetus for her to go on and write her tell all memoir this movie is so loosely based around...

Considering that, I went into this completely like; "meh." I actually quite enjoyed it! I mean, I can't vouch for how historically accurate or true to reality it actually is, bit if you strip that part of it away and just look on it as the portrayal of a famous, popular Hollywood actress being absolutely unhinged and borderline sadistic, and it being an exploration of the power dynamic and relationship that exists between said actress and her adopted daughter, then it's a really good movie. Faye Dunaway is typically over-the-top and at times maniacial. There is one scene that genuinely could have been the influence for Heath Ledger's Joker... makeup and all... but approaching it from that angle, it's a decent movie. I think where the obvious controversy comes in is that it's intended to be a portrayal of one of Hollywood's greatest sweethearts.... factual or not...

As mentioned; Faye Dunaway is carrying this whole thing really and most of the movie centres on her portrayal of Joan Crawford with only cut away and part scenes being focused on Christina. I, once again, cannot vouch for the accuracy of her portrayal of Joan but as an unstable Hollywood actress trying to walk the thin line between balancing a delicate period of her career and moving into more meaningful experiences as a person, Faye does an really good job of showcasing the absolute descent into mental breakdown followed by the efforts to save face and paper over the cracks. She is categorically bananas. Screaming, wailing and occasionally breaking down into floods of tears but it's very easy to forget that this is a person acting out these moments. Not something that is really happening and I think it's there that Faye Dunaway does such a great job. It's 100% believable, even if maybe not the most factual portrayal.

These movies are not really my wheelhouse, so I am by no means a seasoned critic but in terms of the story and plot development, it was mostly captured pretty neatly. There were times though, with the pacing, that I struggled to keep up and understand what was happening, or had happened off camera, and to understand it I did have to check a couple of things. I had no idea Alfred Steele died for example and that whole scene was a bit confusing until I managed to connect the dots. I guess you are going to have this to a degree when you are trying to sandwich 30-40 years of existence into a single movie runtime but I sometimes felt like the pacing was way off as the movie jumped from key moment to key moment and I think something needed to be done to slightly better flesh out certain events rather than just segwaying straight into them.

That being said though, the movie did a pretty good job with portraying the power dynamic that existed between mother and daughter and fleshing out the difficult relationship that they had. I thought the movie did well to pick maybe 2 or 3 different examples of how elements of the relationship developed and played out and did well to paint a complete picture of what the relationship was like between the pair. Again can't attest for the historical accuracy but in terms of what the movie was portraying. They did a good job of building and developing the 2 on screen characters and at times it did get a little bit uncomfortable to watch the physical and mental abuse that Christina was subjected to.

Very little really for me to say in terms of Soundtrack and Cinematography. There wasn't much of a soundtrack really to speak of, when called up on for background music as part of a dramatic scene it was just fine. Cinematography equally was perfectly fine for the story they were telling although a nod of acknowledgement for how good portions of the movie were filmed, particularly whenever Joan was having a total breakdown as they were well framed and well apportioned that you felt the drama and the tension of the situation.

Yeah, so really very little here for me to be overly critical on. I've obviously mentioned I think in every paragraph... that I cannot vouch for how authentic a portrayal it is of Joan Crawford or just how anchored in reality it really is? It would not surprise me at all to learn that Joan was not as quite over dramatic and unhinged as Faye Dunaway portrayed her. I am not a stranger to Faye Dunaway's acting at this stage... but if you remove that major factor then as a movie depicting a difficult relationship between mother and daughter then yes, this was fairly decent. But unfortunately this movie lives and dies on whether or not it is a truthful depiction of Christina Crawford's relationship with her mother and whilst I'm not fully qualified to really answer that question and I am inclined to believe that it is unfortunately not and is very sensationalised. I am not here to give you that though. I'm here to tell you whether or not it's a terrible movie. And in terms of my entertainment experience, and as to whether or not I thought it was a difficult watch? The answer is no. No it wasn't. 2 out of 5.