**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring Faye Dunaway, Steve Forrest, Diana Scarwid, Mara Hobel
screenplay by Frank Yablans & Frank Perry and Tracy Hotchner and Robert Getchell, based on the book by Christina Crawford
directed by Frank Perry
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover How sad to think the only popular remnant of Christina Crawford's debunking of her abusive mother is a bad movie famous for its overacting. Many have thrilled to the awesome camp spectacle of Faye Dunaway chewing scenery as Joan Crawford in all her alcoholic clean-freak glory, yet I somehow can't join the party: as ridiculous as the "Biggest Mother of Them All" may be, there was a victim of her unknowing self-parody–and seeing that sufferer get a thorough shellacking is just a little hard to take. It's like watching some halfwit drunk try to pick up an unwilling woman at a bar: his feeble come-ons might amuse if only they didn't result in the horrible discomfort of the second party. In any other context, Dunaway's fare-thee-well performance would guarantee instant hilarity, but the horrible things the titular Mommie Dearest does to her helpless prey kind of squelch the drag-queen pleasures to be had.
While Crawford's tell-all at least had the function of personal catharsis and revenge, this singularly crass production is merely trying to cash in on a smash bestseller. Thus Mommie Dearest has no real angle on the mad spectacle of Joan/Dunaway obsessively scrubbing herself raw and screaming at the help when they fail to clean underneath a large potted plant before finally checking herself, saying, "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the dirt." It just catalogues Joan Crawford's reign of terror, including first her making lawyer boyfriend Greg Starett pull strings so that she can adopt Christina (Mara Hobel) and her brother Christopher (Jeremy Scott Reinbolt), then her twisting the children into baroque hoops as she sets up ways for them to please her that no human being could ever possibly satisfy.
The film is a money job all the way, and perhaps its escape into bad-movie legend is the punishment it deserves. Unfortunately, every action has an equal and opposite reaction: hilarious as it is to watch Dunaway be completely unreasonable, it usually ends with Christina in tears or stricken stupefied. True, Joan flipping out over the proliferation of wire hangers is unmistakably funny, especially since she's wearing a cold-cream kabuki mask during this infamous harangue–but Joan goes on to beat the tar out of Christina for said infraction, stopping the laugh riot short. This isn't some Ross Hunter soap opera where it's mostly adults doing ridiculous things to each other, it's a vaguely-factual recreation of a mean woman abusing two children. Maybe I'm soft, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
By the time an impassive Diana Scarwid took over the role of Christina, I was crawling out of my skin: the poor girl is put on such a rollercoaster by her needy mother that it's exhausting to watch her be let down so many times for such thoroughly trivial reasons. And the camp elements only serve to heighten the nightmare, with the bad acting taking an already unpleasant personality and magnifying it times a thousand. If your idea of a good time is getting tongue-lashed by a fifty-foot Lady Macbeth, have I got a movie for you–but the spaces between the masses of ludicrous dialogue ("Don't fuck with me fellas! This ain't my first time at the rodeo!") are often genuinely disturbing. However much the film may implode on itself, it takes down innocent bystanders in the ensuing carnage.
THE DVD
Paramount ponies up an average presentation for their DVD reissue of Mommie Dearest, which sports a somewhat pallid and detail-challenged 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colours are washed-out (even by early-'80s standards) and a chalkiness persists. The Dolby Digital 5.1 remix seems entirely superfluous for a film whose background effects are confined to glasses clinking and liquor pouring, though the score trickles faintly into the surrounds. You won't feel cheated by the original mono track, also on board.
Extras begin with a feature-length yakker from John Waters that had my jaw on the floor. Although he's welcome to his opinion that the film and Dunaway are actually quite good (a not-uncommon demurral from accepted wisdom), he appears to believe that Joan Crawford did nothing wrong beyond "taking things too seriously" and that Christina was an ungrateful little wench for complaining about her privileged lifestyle. As ever, Waters makes for a witty and charismatic commentator, but I'm not sure about his assertion that being wealthy compensates for obsessive-compulsive bullying. Of course, "The Revival of Joan" (14 mins.) is largely comprised of lame excuses on the other end of the spectrum: producer Frank Yablans dominates, praising the book's exhumation of skeletons and intimating his own past with an abusive mother, while Scarwid and others offer pseudo-psychology on the nature of abuse and the actor's process.
"Life with Joan" (13 mins.) deals with the production, by which I mean the ordeal of standing aside as Dunaway acted her heart out. Scarwid and Rutanya Alda both report of on-camera slappings while the superstar assumed the mantle of Joan. Lastly, the film's unexpected second life is explored in "Joan Lives On" (16 mins.): along with Yablans and the cast, the likes of Waters and Crawford impersonator John "Lipsynka" Epperson explore favourite scenes and marvel at the film's continued popularity with gay audiences. Waters still doesn't think Crawford's a baddie, but this is to be expected from the director of Serial Mom. A photo gallery, the trailer, trailers for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Reds, Titanic, and an unfunny "gay history" spot for the Logo network round out this "Hollywood Royalty Edition" of Mommie Dearest.
128 minutes; PG; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Mono), French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Paramount
