Mommie Dearest

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Mommie Dearest

80% Liked It
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Mommie Dearest

Diana Scarwid, Faye Dunaway, Howard Da Silva, Joan Crawford, Mara Hobel

A portrayal of the actress Joan Crawford as a screaming witch-mother who abuses her kids.

Id: 10903061

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Recent Reviews

Mommie Dearest Recent Reviews
  • webalina
    July 2, 2009
    webalina
    Giving this more stars than it deserves just because it's so campy and bad, but SO VERY entertaining.
  • wellmeetagain
    November 7, 2008
    wellmeetagain
    On the plus side: great for lines such as "I told you not to use wire hangers"......minus side: Resuilted in Faye Dunaway being blacklisted.... I found it to be enjoyable if somewhat campy...
  • puffchunk
    September 25, 2008
    puffchunk
    When Joan freaked out it was very fun, but there are lots of drawn out sequences that we could have lived without.
  • StaisilD
    June 22, 2008
    StaisilD
    Joan Crawford: "No... wire... hangers. What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER?"


    Film legend Joan Crawford (Dunaway) seems to have it all: a thriving career, a beautiful Brentwood mansion, and a hunky boyfriend. However, Joan is determi...( read more)ned to also have a child, so she adopts young Christina (Mara Hobel). However, the obsessive-compulsive actress is not well suited to the task. Joan proceeds to deliver a seminar on how not to raise children: taunting Christina when she loses to her mother in a pool race, starving her because she won't eat raw steak, beating the crap out of her with a wire hanger, all in the name of raising Christina to be a proper young lady. As Joan's career starts to fade, she becomes even more desperate, stealing the now-older Christina's (Diana Scarwid) role on a soap opera. In her final years, Joan descends into a vodka-fueled funk but, despite the years of abuse and histrionics, Christina still loves her "Mommie Dearest." Faye Dunaway practically chews the scenery as Joan Crawford. There is absolutely no restraint to her performance, and sometimes it's difficult not to laugh. Nevertheless, Dunaway's makeup is very convincing, she ages impressively, and she looks uncannily like Crawford. The other performances fade into the background. This is Dunaway's one-woman show. And look out, because she shows it all. For all its sins both in intent and execution "Mommie Dearest" is one of those films you have to see to believe. Though it's excessive style might underplay the seriousness of child abuse and alcoholism, it emerges as one of those films that isn't to be taken too seriously- so don?t.
  • johnd62
    May 24, 2008
    johnd62
    Or what I like to call campy sh*t fest that killed Faye Dunaway's career. Mommie Dearest is as bad as everyone says it is but at even so bad that it becomes fun to watch. Quite simply this movie sucks.
  • samanthaseaotter
    December 8, 2009
    samanthaseaotter
    Probably not too accurate but fun as a ridiculous entry.
  • 21rclemente
    November 16, 2009
    21rclemente
    Scenial mother with obsesive compulsive disorder attempts to be a stand up mom. She failed. The movie however was pretty good for a golden oldie. Slow but good
  • AndrewJerome6573
    October 5, 2009
    AndrewJerome6573
    This may very well be one of the most loathsome and sloppy screen treatments to ever have been derived from a literary memoir. I only noticed four distinct areas in which "Mommie Dearest" is a complete disaster: the screenplay, the acting, the direction and the editing. Other tha...( read more)n that, this is a fine film. Director Frank Perry delivers what could be one of the sloppiest directing jobs ever released by a major studio. He simply sits back and lets Dunaway rip. He was either supremely untalented or he purposefully intended to sabotage her. The narrative is chopped up worse than a Thanksgiving turkey, with a bizarre and fragmented collection of scenes showcasing little but mass hysteria. Dunaway does not chew scenery. Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene and swallows it whole, costars and all. Oy Faye!
  • Sunshineyness
    August 8, 2009
    Sunshineyness
    Joan Crawford: you fear her, but you also kind of wanna be her as well. She is, was, and always will be the quintessential star of Hollywood. How else could a woman who really only starred in two (Mildred Pierce, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) honest to goodness masterpieces ma...( read more)naged to still be revered and loved well into 2009? There's so much to look in horror at- but also something to respect in how she could command things of people and demand so much- and get it. (And ironically enough dissed woman's lib)

    I think most people miss the point in this movie. Joan is not the enemy, Christina is not the enemy. They truly were mother and daughter, cut from the same damn cloth. I've always kind of suspected the truth of their situation was somewhere in the middle. It's quite clear in this movie that Christina is every bit the selfish spoiled petulant child most people branded her after her salacious tell-all came out but it's also quite clear that Joan was no saint, and really did suffer from some mental instability. It's interesting looking at this story from a completely subjective viewpoint: a lot of the things Joan did to "torture" Christina were REALLY NOT THAT AWFUL. I mean, making her give away a lot of her birthday presents to poor kids? (considering most of the gifts she got were more of a suck up to mom) Not really that unreasonable when she had so much already. Not giving her money as a grown woman all the time? Not so unreasonable given how much she championed self-sufficiency. Being mad that her getting caught in a scandalous position with a boy got her kicked out of a nice boarding school? Really not that unreasonable. What's fascinating is seeing how in Tina's mind these things got blown so out of proportion that she saw them as "just another horrid thing Mommie Dearest" did.

    Now, don't get me wrong, this movie does have it's so-bad-it's-good moments. The girl playing Tina (both as a child and adult) is obscenely horrible- but that's kind of where the genius comes in- because she's SUPPOSED to come off bratty and annoying. And yes, we all know the "no more wire hangers!!!" scene by heart. But really, that stuff only makes it better.

    A lot of people whine that this movie is over-the-top... lemme explain something to you: if you have been around anyone with any kind of mental instability (be it OCD or bi-polar- which most people will readily admit Crawford suffered from obscenely untreated and unhelped by an on-again off-again alcohol problem) you will understand that this is 100% on the money. It really truly is.

    I implore people to look past the exploitative aspects of the movie and see it for what it truly is saying: this mother and daughter truly were made for each other and their own worst enemies. This is probably the least glamorized, least romanticized and most complicated-ly real mother-daughter relationship ever put on screen. Guess what duckies? Not everyone's mom/daughter relationship is manies and cosmos for lunch followed by shopping and chit chat about your lives. In real life sometimes it's a ton more complex and this movie really lets that loose.
  • mystiquewolves69
    July 23, 2009
    mystiquewolves69
    Crawford was a lunatic!!
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