Review of Mommie Dearest (1981) by Humberto O — 20 Feb 2014

While this film is severely lacking in some aspects, and actually exposes how distorted Christina's account of the relationship between her and her mother is, this movie still deserves its cult status.

The narrative is a disconnected mess, specially at the end where the jumps start to get confusing. It seems that Joan Crawford (bear in mind, I don't know much about her), as a character, is only superficially explored, the main focus of the movie being the alleged child abuse and the fits and eccentricities of the actress.

It ends up, however, going exactly on the opposite direction, showing a mother who, despite her usual mood swings (caused mostly by a stressing career), tries to raise her children as respectable and independent as possible and to keep them away from the more likely fate of a Hollywood's star children, but gets nothing but ungratefulness from a self-centered daughter.

Faye Dunaway's performance is always criticized in this movie, but this is exactly one of its high points, and it's one of the things that actually save this movie from being very bad. The scenes where she has her fits and give away those well know quotes are what mainly make this deserving of its cult following.

This is kinda of a good trash, but also a movie to watch only once (if you have time to spare).