Joan Crawford did not have the last word

MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

Thirty-five years since its release (met with disdain by some critics), “Mommie Dearest” almost single-handedly was responsible for the decline in quality movie roles for Faye Dunaway. The movie was considered a travesty of Joan Crawford’s memory and had many wondering if it was not just mere exploitation of true childhood trauma (to be fair, Christina Crawford’s book was accused of the same and also faced a second charge – it was accused of being straight fiction). Time has been kind to the film and it has since become a campy cult classic and a favorite of the gay community. The truth is that after recently seeing the film again, and having my unstained memory of it intact from a VHS viewing back in 1981 or ’82, I can say that “Mommie Dearest” is a sustained mood piece of heightened mania, a no-holds-barred look at a physically and emotionally abusive woman.

Faye Dunaway delivers a pure marvel of a performance (perhaps her last), displaying the haughtiness, the sensitivity and the high-pitched madness of a woman who wanted everything perfect. The cost of her perfection and her compulsive habits was not just to her fleeting relationships with men but her strained, pained and unwieldy relationship with her adopted daughter, Christina. Christina is shown at two different ages, one as a precocious child (Mara Hobel, a haunting performance) who is told that she is an inferior swimmer by Joan amongst other things, and then in post-teenage years as a tacitly rebellious woman (Diana Scarwid) who infuriates Joan when she says one of the single most hilarious lines in the entire film, delivered with great zeal: “I…am…not…one…of…your…fans!” As a child, Christina is forced to sit at the dinner table until she eats her meal, forced to clean the bathroom tiles during the middle of the night, and has chunks of her hair cut rather furiously by Joan (Oh, I must not forget those dreaded wire hangers). As the teenage Christina, she is somehow not allowed to date while attending a private school, and is summarily forced to attend a convent of sorts (though too much of that plot thread is left dangling in the screenwriter’s gutter).

This mother-daughter relationship is very well exposed and justifiably tough to watch. Unfortunately, other characters are left on the sidelines of Joan’s overly manicured gardens. Rutanya Alda as Joan’s long-time housekeeper, Carol Ann, is not given enough to do except react with silent gestures and, though we sense her devotion to this maniac of an actress, there is not much else except a series of reactions. Steve Forrest as a Hollywood lawyer, Gregg Savitt, and Pepsi CEO, Alfred Steele (Harry Goz), are two men most central to Joan’s existence but their appearances are somewhat fleeting (though Forrest charmingly captures the Hollywood of yesteryear). The main focus is on Joan’s fractured, violent relationship to her daughter whom she treats as anything but. It is so bleakly presented with no sweeping camera moves or unnecessary frantic cuts that it remains the most honest depiction of parental abuse of its time.

For all of the intrinsic flaws in “Mommie Dearest” with insufficient nourishment provided to secondary characters, the film still has a hypnotic pull to it, swiftly directed by Frank Perry. Scene after scene, the movie mesmerizes even when it isn’t always attentive to character nuance. Joan is shown as a tyrannical monster more attuned to providing emotional support for her beaus than to her own daughter (Joan even replaces her daughter’s role in a soap opera, much to Christina’s chagrin). The frustration, the anger, the resentments are fully explored and vividly realized in the torrential relationship between Joan and Christina. It is neither campy nor comedic – it is real. I am sure I will not have the last word on that.

Footnote: Please read Rutanya Alda’s own “Mommie Dearest Diaries” available at http://www.amazon.com/Mommie-Dearest-Diary-Carol-Tells/dp/1515260607/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450297568&sr=8-1&keywords=mommie+dearest+diaries