Mommie Dearest
It is pretty much guaranteed way to score an Oscar. There have been a long line of acclaimed performances by actors pretending to be other famous people. Ray, for instance, helped Jamie Foxx scoop up Best Actor while Walk The Line saw Reece Witherspoon garnered a gong. It seems that it couldn’t possible mean disaster if the centric character is acclaimed or has an interesting story (inevitable surround drugs no less). And then there is Mommie Dearest. Surely, everyone involved had an idea that this would excel and in many ways it has, earning a cult audience that are thrilled by every moment. But this is the height of melodramatic excess of the early 1980’s which put a black mark on Faye Dunaway’s career despite its stirring moments.
Mommie Dearest is the biopic of Joan Crawford told from the point of view of her daughter Christina and based on the memories of the same name. Starring Dunaway as Crawford, it sees the famed actress as she navigates the world of Hollywood alongside her need for children. Finding out that she cannot bear children, she adopts starting off with baby Christina. Though sickly sweet at first and besotted with her new daughter, Joan starts to spiral into a series of abusive acts against her daughter. Controlling and overbearing, Mommie Dearest showcases the acts behind closed Beverley Hills doors…
So the epitome of Mommie Dearest can often be found in the collection of audiences who have perpetuated the campy excellence up until now. The affair is a romp told entirely in thick eyebrows, wire hangers and an excess of make-up. Dunaway, for all intense and purposes, was remarked by those close to Crawford that her acting was spot on but for those outside of the Joan clan may be alarmed by the performances. The thick brooding vocals, the shoulder padded outfits and the alluring face scream over the top, disturbing and most of the time, hilarious. Dunaway feels like those movie stars but maybe that is the point, Crawford’s life under a spotlight so he exudes this excessive drama that dleves into abusive insanity showing that fame cannot forgive violence.
The thing about Mommie Dearest is that under the creamed face mask of it, the screaming and the tentative relationship between Christina and Joan, there is a sensitivity that feels lost by the original batch of critics that deemed it Razzie worthy. Something about the rage boiling beneath Christina as she smiles through pleasantries compared with the love boiling beneath Joan as she rages through abuse. The direct juxtaposition between mother and daughter is strikingly taut and though you may revel in the alarming campiness of it, there is a bustling drama that feels poignant in places.
Roar with ferociousness at this intense classic that may entirely encapsulate everything about Joan Crawford or the over the top nature of past film stars (and that isn’t a point to a certain “I only watch post 1980’s movies because this film counts). As ridiculous as it may seems, something about it is highly enjoyable and smoulders with empathetic moments.
TTFN
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