Mammina cara

Oh Lord, Here it comes..... This is the big one. Never before has there been (and probably never will there be again) a camp monstrosity as huge as this. An over-the-top "true story" about Christina Crawford being adopted, raised and tormented by the legendary film star Joan Crawford, the film is an amazing exercise in excess. Virtually every line in the film is a quotable hoot (and legions of people can almost recite the script!) It is an overabundance of comedic riches. It's almost impossible to pick a favorite scene. First, though it is likely that certain aspects of this film have a seed of truth, there is no way that this is an authentic film biography.......NO WAY. So, while a few incidents are loosely derived from fact, most of it is guilt-free hilarity. Christina's book was striking, but contained nothing as wild and vicious as this film presents. And it's entirely probable that some of Christina's memories were exaggerated by childhood perspective (although there's no denying that her mother was an obsessive, neurotic, steamroller of a woman.) Even Tina explained, in her book, certain aspects of the bad behavior which shed some light on Joan's actions. None of that is presented here. For example, the infamous rare meat scene...the film doesn't disclose that Joan paid high black market prices for the beef (during wartime rationing) and was appalled that Tina turned her nose up at it and wasted it. Also, the violent night raid scene is actually a compilation of two different occasions, etc.... The film tries to maximize and sensationalize everything and over-do everything to the point where it turns comic. Dunaway (who has, herself, described her mesmerizing and ferocious performance as "Kabuki") is beyond fascinating to watch. She imbues the role with an intense, stunning magnetism which blows everyone else off the screen. It's amazing that the sets were left intact! Despite an explosive, unforgettable performance, Faye actually looks almost nothing like the real Joan Crawford. Her eyes are not nearly large enough and nothing is done to make them appear so, her eyebrows are ridiculous, her chest is not as pronounced as Joan made hers and her hair is almost never the way the real Joan wore it! And both women have HIGHLY unique voices, but which are not alike at all. Still, she radiates all the necessary star quality for the role. Anne Bancroft would have LOOKED the part more, but who knows what the film would have been like? Better? Duller? It certainly could not have been wilder! Highlights of the Faye Dunaway circus act include: the legendary cold cream-faced night raid with the iconic screech, "No Wire Hangers!", her tirade with the scissors when she catches Tina mocking her, her showdown with the boarding school principal, the resultant wrestling match with Tina back home and the magnificent face-off with the Pepsi Board of Directors. It would be impossible to list the many quotes which make this film required viewing (only the surface has been scratched in the Memorable Quotes section.) "I fought worse monsters than you for years in Hollywood. I know how to win the hard way" immediately followed by "Don't F*CK with me fellas!! This ain't my first time at the rodeo", isn't a bad start. Too hilarious! Young Hobel really holds her own as Tina and though Scarwid is less successful as grown Tina, she still gets in a few good licks. In any case, the film has provided untold hours of enjoyment and allowed for some instant bonding whenever people start spouting off the hilarious lines. WHEN is someone going to adapt this into a stage show?!

Having read most of the reviews I really expected some terribly acted, campy cult flick. What I got is one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. I've never been a fan of Joan Crawford. Just about the only movie of hers I've ever liked was Mildred Pierce. I've always gotten a bad vibe from her. She seemed hard and cold. This movie just justified my feeling.

I remember the publicity when the book and movie came out. I didn't read the book and didn't watch the movie until today. It is gut wrenching. The story is so well known I don't have to go over it. The is as much Joan's story as it is Christina's and each one is flawed. But Joan was an adult her mental and physical cruelty to Christina is inexcusable. Fay Dunaway did a really wonderful job. Why this ruined her career is beyond me. Christina is more complex as a character and both actresses did a fine job. Neither character is portrayed as blameless and that is why the story is so complex. They are both so very flawed.

The end is just another kick in the gut, the final cruelty in a lifetime of cruelties, and the look in Christina's eyes as the camera fades out is chilling. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would laugh at anything in this movie or call it campy. I have no idea why Ms. Dunaway refuses to talk about it, or why it ruined her career. She did a helluva job.

This is hard to watch but is worth the time.

Mommie Dearest is a film based on the book of the same title written by Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford. This film and the book it is based off of tells the story of how Joan Crawford behaved behind closed doors with her children, how she abused them, had crazy/wild outbursts, which sometimes turned violent. In my honest opinion, mommie dearest is very well acted, Faye Dunaway blew me away in her brutally honest portrayal of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford. In the beginning, we are introduced to ms Crawford as a young actress, at the height of her career, working at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, no children, and two divorces. She applies to an adoption agency, but her application is denied, so she goes through some loopholes, pulls some strings, and adopts her daughter, Christina, and then her son Christopher. Throughout the film Joan is depicted by Dunaway as a self obsessed, selfish, child abusing alcoholic that never really gives her love to her children. In many scenes, a teenage Chrisrina tries desperately to gain her mothers love, but she never really receives it. The chemistry between Joan and Christina is good here and the acting is very dramatic and very intense, as it should be. I don't exactly understand some of the negative reviews this movie has received both when it first came out and over the years. I think mommie dearest is a well made and well acted film telling the very sad true story of actress Joan Crawford and her private life and strained relationships with her children with with whom she woefully mistreated. 8/10 for mommie dearest.

"Because I am NOT one of your FANS!"

Simply said, this is superb trash. Enjoyable b.s. Faye Dunaway lobbied hard for the role of Joan Crawford (Christina Crawford wanted Anne Bancroft) and she admirably sinks into the part with relish. I loved the opening montage of "Joan" preparing for her day early in the morning: scrubbing her hands and nails, numbing her face in ice cubes, leafing through a script in her car, getting made-up, and then whirling around in her chair and letting loose with a breathy, "Let's go!"... Sadly, Frank Perry's direction is awkward and unsure, cutting off some sequences before they're allowed to build and letting other scenes ramble on. The movie doesn't do justice to the riveting book by Joan's adopted daughter Christina, committing to film the book's highlights, the talked-about bits where Crawford freaked out, but skimping on the details. We learn absolutely nothing about Christina's many tormented years in an L.A. Catholic Boarding School (we see her check in and we see her check out). Joan's marriage to Pepsi czar Alfred Steele and her three other adopted kids are also given the short shrift. What we do get with "Mommie Dearest" is pure, unadulterated Faye. She acts up a storm and revels in these primal opportunities. It's one of the highlights of her spotty career. **1/2 from ****

Mommie Dearest is the cinematic retelling of Christine Crawford's excoriating autobiography in which she details the psychological and physical abuse she suffered from her mother, legendary Hollywood actress, Joan Crawford. In the film, Joan is played by Faye Dunaway, a role which is widely considered to have derailed her own Hollywood career. Although the film is supposedly based on Christine's story, its centrepiece is very much Joan herself. We witness her romantic dalliances, her battles to remain relevant in the film industry and, most memorably, her fits of ferocious insanity and cold manipulation towards her tormented adopted daughter, Christine (played by both Diana Scarwid and Mara Hobel). This involves seismic freakouts over the use of wire hangers, beatings, an attempt to choke an adolescent Christine to death over a perceived public embarrassment, and continual efforts at the forced feeding of rare meat. All the while, Christine is obligated to refer to her mother as "Mommie Dearest".

As a film which was apparently intended to be a hard-hitting investigation of the horrors of child abuse, this movie has a unique and surprising legacy. It is not recognised critically as a film of value; however, its cultural impact has been significant, particularly for those old enough to remember the controversy surrounding the film's release. As a result, discussions over the film tend to centre around the validity and ethics of its vicious portrayal of a Hollywood icon. Fascinatingly, given its subject matter, the movie has also become a camp classic in the mold of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where audiences will attend in drag and chant key lines from the film in unison followed by unanimous, raucous laughter. Who ever knew that a film that exposed a celebrated figure as being a child-abuser could be such a hoot...

When it comes to analysing the reasons for the above reception, we could do worse than by turning our attention to the first scene. The main character is filmed from behind as she meticulously bathes her face in a bucket of cold ice before rubbing it with a concoction of steaming liquid potions. The camera is focused on filming her from behind and it only shows her from the neck down. The subject is thus eeriely depersonalised in a way which suggests horror undertones. Now this was no doubt intended to show the extreme dedication and the desperation of Joan's attempt to control every aspect about her, especially her looks, but the film-makers only seem to have one approach to their subject: exaggeration.

This approach continues for the rest of the film as we are exposed to a portrayal that is so dramatic, so manipulative, so unhinged that the character fully enters into the territory of horror villain. Joan is shown in scene after scene screaming, howling, beating, chopping, choking. She is depicted as a raging, spit-flecked psychopath, able to be triggered at the slightest perceived provocation: "NO WIRE HANGERS!" One particular scene shows her as capable of murder as poor Christine's life is almost choked into non-existence as a response to a fairly mild moment of defiance. In the words of the angelic looking child Christine, "For Christ's sake."

Due to such unrelenting exaggeration, the film is not centrally a dramatic portrayal of child abuse or any other social subject. It is, rather, both an intensely focused character study and an exploitationist piece of domestically-situated horror. Despite the views of many, I would argue that this is not due to Faye Dunaway's performance per se, but the way in which her performance is contextualised. When you see the first of Joan's dramatic explosions, it is pretty shocking. Joan is played as relatively composed during the film's initial scenes and the child Christine is essentially cuteness and vulnerability personified. Seeing Joan act so cruelly towards her, therefore, initially has the desired effect. The problem is that the entire focus of the film very quickly shifts to a presentation of undiluted rage and insanity, with the rest of the movie lifelessly punctuating the next histrionic detonation. No craft, ambition or skill is shown by anyone behind the camera in channelling what is, in my view, an exceptional central performance into a fully-developed and insightful narrative experience. After all, is Dunaway's performance, from an acting perspective, any more over-the-top than Robert De Niro's in Raging Bull (note the title here) or Gena Rowlands' in A Woman Under the Influence, or Daniel Day Lewis' in There Will Be Blood? Three cinematic performances that demonstrate unmistakable greatness. I would say no. The difference is that De Niro, Rowlands and Day Lewis' performances exist in a wider narrative which is rich, engaging and is able to ground the respective portrayals. Some people are psychotically unhinged, and Joan was played that way here. From a dramatic perspective, there is nothing wrong with that but the film needs to provide a context in which the performance can be meaningfully understood. If the entire rhythm and pulse of the film is based around a performance that is so intense, you risk going from dramatic character study to camp, scenery-chewing, unintentional laugh-fest.

However, as an appreciator of great acting performances, I can not allow Dunaway's efforts to go unnoticed here. She does not over-act, it is the films architecture which under-delivers. This is, actually, a remarkable feat of acting, and it's a great shame that it is now so often seen as hammy to the point of hilarity. Let's bear in mind, De Niro had Scorcese, Rowlands had Cassavetes and Day Lewis had PT Anderson. Who did Dunaway get? Frank Perry.

As I have no knowledge of Joan Crawford personally, I'll make no comment on the veracity of Dunaway's performance, although, artistically, I'm not sure that matters. I will say, though, that it is clear Dunaway reaches deep within herself to deliver something quite special here. She is intense as hell and completely committed to the madness, insecurity and deep sadness that must motivate the actions and reactions of someone as disturbing as the character we see onscreen. Dunaway does not strike any false notes, her conception is fully realised and has a depth and texture that is there to be felt by those who are able to appreciate it. As a showcase of the immense craft of one of the greatest cinematic actresses of all time, this film is actually a triumph. The fact is; however, Dunaway's performance would have been worthy of one of cinema's greatest dramatic tragedies. Instead it has been doomed to be unappreciated, or, perhaps even worse, contemptuously appreciated, in a film that is widely regarded as a farce.

7/10 (And all 7 of those points belong to Faye)