Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

cricketbat Mommie Dearest is a slow, overacted, boring biopic about a fairly uninteresting person. I understand why this may have camp value, but I don't plan on watching it ever again. With the exception of the "wire hangers" scene, this movie wasn't even worth the first watch.

powermandan 'Mommie Dearest' is a memoir by Joan Crawford's adoptive daughter, Christina. Apparently behind closed doors, Joan was an absolute nutcase. I am not sure how much of it is real, fake or embellished, but this film adaptation is a definite embellishment.This is by no means an easy film to sit through. It is full of rage, screaming, crying, and torment. Oddly enough, the physical stuff does not happen as much as you'd think. 'Mommie Dearest' is nothing compared to other insane films released this day in age, but this still has its moments that are difficult to sit through. Child abuse will always be a tough pill to swallow, but over-the-top cheesy acting makes this even harder. Often, movies about child abuse are well done. Not here.Faye Dunaway certainly gained notoriety as the late silver screen actress. Some say she was excellent, others say she was unintentionally funny. I am part of the latter. The problem with her portrayal is that she plays Crawford like someone on Saturday Night Live would play her. Joan Crawford in 'Mildred Pierce' was Joan Crawford playing Mildred Pierce. This movie treats Crawford as is her characters in the movies was how she was in real life. Then there's some bits where Dunaway plays Crawford like other actresses at the time. A few times I expected Dunaway to say "Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my closeup."So the movie starts with Joan Crawford's celebrity status on the rise and her wanting to have children. She cannot, so she adopts. The first she adopts is Christina. Surrounding her with money and glam, the only price to pay was her adoptive mother's wrath. Joan is a hard-ass under pressure to be Hollywood's top star. She also does not want her children to be spoiled brats. But Joan definitely crosses the line. The abuse happens sporadically, maybe two or three scenes' worth. But when it does it stays in your mind, completely clouding everything that happens afterwards. The abuse seems like a lot, but actually is not. The biggest stomach-turner is when Christina is just a little girl and Joan finds a wire hanger. Joan goes completely berserk and beats her with it before making a mess in the washroom and making her clean it. The next stomach-turner happens awhile later with Christina as a young woman. A brief interaction gets escalated into Joan choking Christina. An interview with the real Christina says that if the people didn't intervene, she would be dead. The performances by Joan and Christina are pretty bad, but get saved by the last act. After the near-fatal choke scene, Faye begins to play Joan Crawford like Joan Crawford. She plays her like a real person and not a Saturday night Live character. I liked that. The girl that plays Christina simply did a better job just because. it's weird considering how bad she was in the choking scene. While they may do better jobs in their portrayals, the script really lazes out. The one thing that was needed was more explanations of "why?" Joan realizes how awful she has been and the bond between the two grows. Despite the abuse, Joan and Christina have always loved each other. And we are expected to believe that? When Joan goes bat-****-crazy over the metal hangers, why is she flipping out that badly? I get that we are not supposed to sympathize greatly with Joan, but giving any form of insight on the reasons of these wacky situations would have really increased the overall value of the film. As for Christina, she's just there. Getting an insight on the victim would have increased the overall value too. Even when the two of them start to perform better, none of the quintessential questions are ever answered. Not sure how much is real or not, but the final verdict of the movie is an uneven laze. The acting is bad (except the last 20 minutes or so) and the writing is awful. Just skip this and watch Joan Crawford's real films.

TheLittleSongbird 'Mommie Dearest' has to be one of the most difficult to rate and controversial films there is. It has its admirers but also its detractors. To me, it has a good deal to admire but just as much to criticise, but can also say safely that there are far worse films out there and that it didn't deserve to sweep the Razzie Awards (the script and directing wins are understandable, but actress and supporting actress were to me undeserved) or be on worst-film lists.Despite her Razzie win, count me as one of those who thought that Faye Dunaway was incredible. She clearly did her homework, and sounds, looks and walks like Joan Crawford, and it is a performance that's frightening and compelling. One can understand the criticisms of excessive scenery chewing, admittedly it is not a subtle performance by any stretch of the imagination but the acting style fit with how Crawford was written (one-dimensional in the first place and there was always going to be the trap of over-acting).In support, a brilliant Mara Hobel is the standout as child Christina, she throws herself into the role and one does feel sorry for her. The costumes and sets are evocative and beautifully designed, the film as far as biopics go is pretty accurate and the music score is suitably unsettling and bubbly, typical Henry Mancini.However, Diana Scarvid is wooden and looks like her heart wasn't in it and the rest of the cast are rather too restrained. Even for melodrama the dialogue is far too overwrought and the campiness gets truly bizarre and not in a good way. The story may be pretty accurate to the facts and source material, but a lot of it feels very glossed over rather than meaty and the campiness and bizarreness gets too much. A lot of it lacks clarity to the point of incoherence.Editing is also incomprehensible, while the cinematography is relatively flat and the direction is both skippy and rambling.In summary, very difficult to rate, not a particularly good film but nowhere near as bad as its reputation. 5/10 Bethany Cox

clivechristy-549-202969 When Christina Crawford began tapping out her little poison pen biography, little did she know that the book and film adaptation would become cult and camp classics. Faye Dunaway doesn't ACT as Joan Crawford, she BECOMES Joan. The movie doesn't stray far from the book but what Christina Crawford wrote is acted by Oscar winner Dunaway like she was never going to act again. She might argue that after this movie, she didn't act much, and it is often suggested that she blames this film for her acting demise. Poor Faye forgets her role as Evita Peron in First Lady of Argentina and the soporific Disappearance of Aimee. These were the beginnings of her downward spiral, and I would consider Mommie Dearest a high point in that slow descent. She should embrace the film and the love of gay men all around the world that it has engendered. She delivers her lines and what lines they are...Christina Crawford's word bounce off Faye's razor tongue and then slice through her children. The lines are knives, making little cuts into the psyche of her two adopted children (Crawford adopted four but the other two are never mentioned). Many of the lines are now considered classics and commonly recited by gay men around the world, but more than that, they have reduced the multi decade career of Joan Crawford, to a series of pat clichés recited by drag queens the world over...the most famous being "No wire coat hangers EVER" However my favorite line is "I'm not angry at you Helga, I'm angry at the dirt." Joan had issues with dirt and cleanliness.Faye Dunaway gives a compelling performance, and it also proves that when she was considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation, this was not hyperbole. She is terrifying in this film and goes from controlled charm to unhinged rage in seconds. She has captured all of Joan Crawford in her grandeur and her ugliness. This film was considered, in the year it was released, the worst film and was panned and mocked. The fact is, it was ahead of it's time, and one thing we can say about Faye Dunaway, was that she took her biopic characters seriously. She didn't play dress up, she inhabited the characters. The only thing that could make this a better film is if it were a musical.