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In this week’s Newsweek, Stephen King reviews the chilly Todd Haynes’ remake. Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood burn up the screen in the spectacular HBO miniseries 'Mildred Pierce'.

Newsweek

Mommie Dearest and Her Devil Daughter

by Stephen King

As the 1946 Academy Awards approached, there wasn’t a lot of suspense about where the best-actor and best-picture trophies would wind up; Ray Milland and The Lost Weekend looked like shoo-ins. The best-actress competition, however, was a horse race. The general consensus was that Joan Crawford probably deserved the Oscar for her portrayal of Mildred Pierce in the film of the same name, but three of the other nominated actresses—Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, and Gene Tierney—seemed more likely to win. The films those three women starred in were sunnier (particularly Bergman’s The Bells of St. Mary’s), and the actresses themselves were better-liked. Crawford was arrogant, overmannered, and difficult to work with. "I wouldn’t sit on her toilet," Bette Davis once famously said.

Kate Winslet stars in the title role of the HBO Miniseries "Mildred Pierce". (Photo: Andrew Schwartz / HBO) Arrogant she may have been; stupid she was not. Terrified of losing, she pretended to be sick on the big night. The film’s director, Michael Curtiz—originally dismayed to be saddled with such a difficult leading lady—accepted on her behalf. Crawford welcomed reporters into her bedroom only after her win was safely in the bag.

There’ll be no such difficulties at this year’s Emmy Awards, when Kate Winslet will very likely accept her own award. She isn’t disliked in the Hollywood community, has no diva reputation (at least that I’ve been able to discover), she got to work from a script that closely follows James M. Cain’s high-voltage story (the 1945 version veers wildly from the book, adding a ridiculous murder plot), and she acts rings around Crawford.

Does this make HBO’s five-part miniseries—directed by Todd Haynes and gorgeously photographed by previous Haynes collaborator Edward Lachman—the television event of the spring? Um … well … that sort of depends on your sensibilities, Constant Viewer. If you’re into Bright & Sunny, I suggest five evenings of Frasier reruns. Or you could put The Bells of St. Mary’s in your Netflix queue. If, however, darkly compelling drama about people who aren’t particularly likable (plus one nasty little girl who grows into a truly monstrous young woman) is your cup of bitter tea, you won’t want to miss it.

Mildred Pierce opens in Glendale, Calif., in 1931, and closes there about 10 years later. During the years between, Mildred trudges with grim and not particularly admirable fortitude from one disaster to the next, dragging Veda, her harpy of a daughter, behind her like an anchor. Mildred survives—somehow—but the viewer is left with the sense that none of her victories mean much, and is apt to greet the credit roll at the end of part five with a sigh of relief. Don’t get me wrong: this is compelling viewing, but when Mildred’s tale finally wound up, I felt a little as I did when, as a child, I finally figured out how to get a Chinese finger-puller off my thumbs.

When we meet Mildred, she’s putting the finishing touches on one of the cakes she sells and simultaneously tossing her cheating husband out on his ear. She accomplishes both tasks with aplomb, going after poor, bewildered Bert Pierce with the rat-a-tat delivery of a gangster’s moll in a Cagney picture: "What do you do with her? Play rummy with her a while, then unbutton that red dress she’s always wearing without any brassiere under it, and flop her on the bed? And then have yourself a nice sleep, and then get up and see if there’s some cold chicken in the icebox, and then play rummy some more, and then flop her on the bed again? Gee, that must be swell."

Meanwhile, there’s the awful Veda to consider. She’s a monster, but not one (like Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed) who comes out of nowhere; she is her own mother with all the grace notes removed. Mildred, at least, is capable of love. In Veda, love has been annealed to a hard diamond of ambition. Worse, Mildred becomes her willfully blind enabler. "I don’t want her to just have bread," Mildred tells her friend, Lucy. "I want her to have cake."

Mildred is finally forced to take work as a waitress, although she refuses to breathe a word about it to her children. Ray, the cheerful younger daughter, probably wouldn’t care one way or another, but Veda would be horrified and scornful. Mildred herself is horrified, and that is one of the things that makes her so hard to like. The other is her grim refusal, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, to see that she is nursing a viper in her bosom. And when Ray dies of a fever, the rattlesnake is the only one left in the nest.

Although the mini’s chief selling point with HBO audiences may be Mildred’s soapy, steamy romance with wastrel playboy Monty Beragon (beautifully played by Guy Pearce), the most vital sequences have to do with Mildred’s rise to success in a man’s world, first selling her pies and pastries to the hash house where she works, then opening her own restaurant. As distasteful as she finds her waitressing job, Mildred is a careful, almost predatory observer, and working in a come-n-get-it café teaches her all the pitfalls of food service. Chief among them are excess waste and too many choices. When she opens Mildred’s, there are two basic items on the menu: chicken and waffles. She becomes, in a sense, Colonel Sanders in a woman’s body—and quite the splendid body it is. Cain’s novel describes a lady of voluptuous charms. Joan Crawford was not that woman; Kate Winslet is.

Mildred expands to three restaurants, experiences giddy success, and then loses everything (hence, back to Glendale). She blames the men who gave her too much credit and too much bad advice, but the real culprit is Veda, who hangs on her like a leech, bleeding Mildred dry until she blossoms as a coloratura soprano (something that happens late, with no foreshadowing, and in spite of her nonstop cigarette consumption). Veda leaves for New York, but not before committing one final act far too shocking for the 1945 version of Mildred Pierce to even contemplate—hence the trumpery murder plot. I think Veda’s last betrayal will jolt even modern viewers, and Evan Rachel Wood is amazing in her penultimate scene. Nudity has rarely looked so evil. Or so enticing.

There’s terrific acting in Todd Haynes’s chilly remake. Melissa Leo gives a tough-as-nails performance as Mildred’s one friend, Brían F. O’Byrne is perfect as Mildred’s clueless but basically good-hearted first husband, and as for Winslet and Pearce … holy crow. I detest the term "chemistry" to describe actors playing people who are sexually attracted to each other, so let’s just say these two are in perfect, ferocious sync. Imagine Bogie and Bacall in hell and you’ll get the idea. Winslet and Pearce don’t just heat up Mildred Pierce; they damn near burn it down. If for no other reason, you may want to tune in to see two actors at the height of their creative powers and physical beauty.

All the same, there are problems here. Haynes has shown his love for the Hollywood version of America’s past before, most notably in the remarkable but equally hard to like Far From Heaven (2002), and here it has gotten out of control. In words of one syllable? It’s too damn long. I suppose that sounds impudent, coming from a guy who’s written several doorstop-size novels, but I stand by it. When Emperor Joseph II purportedly told Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that his new opera had too many notes, Mozart supposedly replied, "Only as many as necessary, Your Highness." Using that metaphor, the Haynes version of Mildred Pierce has way too much sheet music.

In his memorable introduction to three of James M. Cain’s early novels, Tom Wolfe wrote: "Picking up a Cain novel [is] like climbing into a car with one of those Superstockers who is up to forty by the time your right leg is in the door." In this version of Mildred Pierce, you are not only in the door by the time the story gets up to cruising speed; you have had time to buckle your seat belt, turn on the radio, leaf through the latest issue of Photoplay, and eat a Butterfinger.

The Depression-era set decoration is perfect, and you get to appreciate all of it because Haynes lingers on each stucco bungalow, each deserted seaside road, each overdecorated Beverly Hills manse. There are soporific panning shots and at least one dolly-track sequence that seems well-nigh endless. Mildred and her friend, Lucy, are at the seashore, and I began to think they were going to walk all the way to San Diego. Perhaps even Mexico City. There are enough shots of a pensive Winslet seen through rain-beaded windshields to make you feel like screaming. Yes, she’s beautiful, I kept thinking, so why the hell isn’t the director getting her to do something more interesting than staring at the windshield wiper? Cain’s novels are quick, hard stabs to the heart. His most famous book, The Postman Always Rings Twice, is just 128 pages long. The original paperback version of Mildred Pierce was only 250 pages. You could read the whole thing aloud before the miniseries finishes. I think Cain would marvel at the acting and production values, but roll his eyes at the plodding pace. Probably Elmore Leonard, whose famous recipe for good entertainment is "leave out the boring parts," would do the same.

And yet Mildred Pierce has a visceral, snake-farm fascination. Any mother who’s ever had daughter troubles (I’d guess that would be most who have daughters) will be immediately engaged. And whatever other problems the mini may have, Haynes clearly conveys Cain’s basic message: when you allow a kid to grow up unfettered by conscience or scruples, the result is apt to be unpleasant. In his introduction, Tom Wolfe calls Veda "a little bitch." Yet we finish able to offer Mildred at least conditional forgiveness. Veda is, after all, what she has, and Mildred fights for it, tooth and nail. And there’s this bonus: Haynes has given us Cain’s original shocker of a climax unvarnished and in lurid close-up.

In the end, though, Winslet carries this show on her sturdy shoulders, and when someone hands her the golden winged lady next year, I’ll be the first to applaud. Did I hear someone out there say, "You’re jinxing her"? Nonsense. Winslet’s Mildred is a genuine star turn. How Joan Crawford would have loathed her.

Plus: Check out more of the latest entertainment, fashion, and culture coverage on Sexy Beast—photos, videos, features, and Tweets.

King is the author, most recently, of Full Dark, No Stars.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-20/stephen-king-reviews-hbos-mildred-pierce/#

The Hollywood Reporter, 3/21/11: Mildred Pierce: TV Review by Tim Goodman.

The Bottom Line: Slow-moving drama about a troubled mother-daughter relationship suffers from a lack of believability.

Director Todd Haynes' miniseries fails to develop the central relationship between the title character, played by Kate Winslet, and her vitriolic daughter. Everything was aligned for HBO and director Todd Haynes to make an enormous splash with the five part miniseries Mildred Pierce. A lot of potential viewers hadn't seen the 1945 film that garnered Joan Crawford an Oscar for her role as the title character. Neither has there been much current scholarship on James M. Cain's 1941 novel.

Haynes (I'm Not There, Far From Heaven) had seen some modern day parallels to the novel (Depression-era, but Los Angeles-based and more to do with class restructuring than Dust Bowl poverty) in our most recent economic downturn and was particularly intrigued by the hideously contorted unrequited love between mother and daughter.

Haynes wanted to focus on how Mildred Pierce suffered from cheating husbands, economic turmoil and long odds of making it in the world as a single mother with two kids, only to complete a reversal of fortune that ultimately wasn’t nearly enough for her daughter, Veda, to appreciate. (The film with Crawford focused on Mildred's then-shocking relationships with men, living outside conventional norms, a murder and her inability to please the petulant Veda).

The superb Kate Winslet stars here as Mildred, with Brian O'Byrne as her first husband, Bert, who cheats on her and is, after it becomes too much for Mildred, tossed out of their Glendale home. Guy Pearce plays Monty, the rich slacker cad who seduces Mildred and stokes her independence. Melissa Leo is her neighbor and confidante, Lucy. And James LeGros is her business counsel (and sometime lover) Wally, who was also friends with Bert.

But the central concern in Haynes' version of Mildred Pierce is Veda, played as an 11-year-old by Morgan Turner and then as a 20-year-old by Evan Rachel Wood. Indeed, it was Cain’s focus as well, with Veda meant to be spoiled and petulant at first and then increasingly mean and evil through the years. But there's an absolute disconnect on how Veda turned out this way and, more important, how Mildred would both tolerate and fuel her behavior.

The miniseries begins in 1931 and Bert’s home building empire is washed out from the Depression. Veda is 11 and, as soon as we meet her, unbelievably haughty, for no discernible reason. Turner, the young actress, plays her like she descended from a BBC series. Compared to younger sister Ray (Quinn McColgan), Veda seems like an evil alien dropped down to poison the Pierce home. Even though they live in Glendale, Veda – who plays piano – fancies herself among the upper crust and Mildred mostly endures the acid-laced talk Veda gives her.

What’s not understandable here is why. So, from the moment that mother and daughter are on screen, their relationship is oddly unbelievable. There's just no connection to the behavior or the acceptance of it. If Mildred desperately wants Veda’s approval, we don’t necessarily get that from Winslet, who tolerates most but not all of young Veda’s indifference and acting out (she’s not afraid to spank her, for example) with a look that says perturbed, not overtly hurt by the unrequited nature of their relationship.

This is a crucial fault, because it never leaves the miniseries during its 7 hours and 15 minutes spread over five chapters. We get glimpses of Veda's bitterness. With her father out of the house and shacked up with another woman, Mildred – gasp – has to work. (In the final hour, Mildred talks to Bert and says that before the Depression they lived as well as anyone in the country, a sentiment that might have been handy five or so hours earlier.) The only job Mildred can get to support Veda and Ray is a waitress job. It’s an idea that disturbs Mildred but, hey, the toll of the Depression isn’t over. Her kids need to eat. She’s a lousy waitress at the beginning, but she has a side business making pies, something she’s done at home for a while. And that’s the key turnaround for Mildred. One of the best clues to Mildred’s feeling about her eldest daughter is almost missed – a barely whispered statement to Veda at the end of part two that is at first too subtle and then, upon deciphering it, not backed by much evidence.

What we witness through the hours (HBO will air the first two chapters together on the 27th) is an admirable tale of Mildred, working with Wally’s backing, opening her own restaurant, succeeding in a man’s world. Meanwhile, Veda continues to be something of a child prodigy at piano, and Mildred foots the bills.

There’s a very slow pacing to Mildred Pierce but not one that should come as a surprise to fans of HBO, which lets its creative people tell full stories. And yet, you begin to wonder when events will accelerate or explanations will be given. Neither occurs much in the two years encompassing part three. But part four suddenly lurches forward four years and circumstances have improved greatly for Mildred. Here's where we're introduced to Wood’s version of Veda. She's less overtly hostile toward her mother – until a well-respected music teacher gives Veda the bad news. She not the talented pianist everyone (especially Mildred) imagines.

While Veda spirals into bad behavior and some of her monstrous tendencies reveal themselves to Mildred, we still don’t quite get enough storytelling as to why Mildred should be the one to blame. Nor is it clear, other than a mother’s love for her child, while Mildred seems so resentful of being shut out of Veda’s life. The girls has been a royal pain in the ass for most of her life. Let her fly free for a while.

It's worth noting that noir is missing here, replaced by ever-increasing melodrama. From the first to the last part of the miniseries, Haynes has a fascination with shooting from behind and through glass, but the stylistic tic doesn’t reverberate with much metaphor, if that’s what was intended.

The last two parts of Mildred Pierce pick up the pace exponentially, but there’s a strange rush to it all and an almost too-pat coming together of lives and story. Leo’s role is strong but not flashy. (Mare Winningham gives a strong performance in a smaller role. Hope Davis has a cameo.) Pearce’s upper-crust descent is an almost happy-go-lucky spiral, which wonderfully conceals his later actions. And O'Byrne's steadiness as Bert makes him the most likeable character here.

But when all the storytelling is coming to a climax, there's something missing – the same connection that was absent between Mildred and Veda from the start. It could have been in the adaptation – a loss of Cain's hardened belief that some people just ain't no good. It could be that Winslet's choice to dial back the melodrama in Mildred is what hurts the cause. She seems more like a mother who can’t figure out what she did wrong, rather than one who believes her daughter can do no wrong and thus obsequiously kisses her feet. That essential connection – super needy mother, withholding, vicious daughter – isn’t fully developed.

It could be that Haynes' vision of a sweeping mother-daughter story wants for a complexity, a vast emotional grandeur, that the writing doesn’t give us. Or it could be that Mildred Pierce plays better as hardcore noir, where motivations begin and end inside dark hearts – no explanation necessary.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mildred-pierce-tv-review-169424