Review of Mommie Dearest (1981) by Eric K — 18 Mar 2010

This kind of movie is impossible to rate. Three stars is much more than it deserves, but also oh-so-much less. It's badly written and directed, overacted to the point of self-parody, and disastrously put together (the cuts between some scenes and eras are so abrupt that Faye Dunaway should've beaten the editor with that coat hanger).

Dunaway's Joan Crawford wears clown-like pancake makeup, savagely attacks her angelic daughter, rages, howls, and snarls like a rabid dog, swoops and soars emotionally like an out-of-control pelican, and gets too old to work in This Town.

Apparently, she was also an actress of some sort. But "Mommie Dearest" isn't concerned with Crawford's hobby; this is a soap-operatic tragedy detailing her career as a psychopathic monster.

And on that level, it's delicious! Forget all about any redeeming qualitative value here; just enjoy the pure malicious thrill of cinematically slumming it. The ridiculous dialogue ("Please don't go.

I'm not actin'. I'm not actin'!"....you're telling me, babe) turns by mid-film into a series of unintentional punchlines ("When you were a kid that made you look sexy. Now it just makes you look drunk.

" "DAMNNNNN YOU!!!", "I AM NOT....ONE OF YOUR FANS!!!", and of course, "NO...WIRE...HANGERS!!!" You quickly learn to anticipate Christina's beatings, so make sure to have the popcorn ready.

My personal favorite is when Crawford tackles her across an end-table and strangles her on the living room floor in front of the Redbook reporter. See what I mean? The whole movie is like an Ultimate Fighting match for bitchy actresses.

Dunaway may be over the top, but maybe she's compensating for Diana Scarwid's, ahem, lack of presence as the adult Christina. Let's put it this way: if she weren't being beaten, you wouldn't know she was there.

Of course, maybe the performance is perfect for the movie: if Christina weren't being beaten, there'd be no reason for her character to show up at all. Did this stuff really happen? Who knows.

Child abuse, of course, is deplorable. But the movie, based on Christina Crawford's memoir, takes vengeance on her mother's legacy by portraying her as impossibly deranged; someone like this shouldn't be allowed to wear a belt or shoelaces, let alone raise children.

The surreality of it all transforms what may have been intended as a serious drama into a sporting event. And that may be the film's biggest crime: the way this film is made, we mistake a social-work case study for entertainment.