Monte is shot in his beach house while his wife, Mildred Pierce, is seen running away. After being brought to the police station, Mildred starts telling her story to the police officer: she was a housewife, but after her husband, Bert, a real estate agent, lost his job, they got into an argument and seperated. In order to take care of her two kids, Veda (16) and Kay (10), Mildred finds a job for the first time, as a waitress. She saves enough to open her own restaurant. Wally, Bert's ex-partner, is trying to flirt with Mildred, but she instead starts a relationship with the rich Monte. Kay dies from pneumonia, which makes Veda even more spoiled. Veda asks for more and more money, exhausting Mildred. Veda then marries a rich lad, only to divorce him to get 10,000$ out of his pocket. Mildred agrees to marry Monte and bring Veda back home. After she catches Veda and Monte kissing, a fight erupts. Monte doesn't want to marry Veda, who shoots him in an act of rage. Back in present, the police arrest Veda.
Even though director Michael Curtiz directed an astounding 102 films during his career in Hollywood, a part of them were not that great, among them "Mildred Pierce": it is a solid, but overall too routine and schematic drama, without much ingenuity. Too melodramatic, at times acting almost as a soap opera, "Mildred" is only occasionally interesting, mostly thanks to a good leading performance by Joan Crawford, who won several awards for her role of a mother who sacrifices herself completely for her kids, only to bitterly realize that her teenage daughter, Veda, is an exploitative gold digger. Veda's subplot is far more intriguing, her schemes being downright disturbing (she marries a naive, rich lad, only to then initiate a costly divorce and lie that she is pregnant in order to "milk" 10,000 $ from his family) and could have even served as the main plot, instead of the rather predictable Mildred. The writing is dated, especially in the corny dialogues by Wally ("Friendship is much more lasting than love!" - "Yeah, but it isn't as entertaining.") whereas it again uses the cliche of a "fake opening", only to then go into a flashback narrating how the characters all got to that point, which is a trick already done to death. A few noteworthy observations are about early feminism, since Mildred starts off as a married housewife, only to later on resort to finding her own job to be independent and survive.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment