or, “An Abundant Deposit of Effective Cringe”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.
4.5 out of 5
To paraphrase Tarantino, a movie that successfully uses a piece of music, owns that music. Likewise, 1981’s docudrama “Mommie Dearest” (or MD) belongs to its lead actress, Faye Dunaway.
Audiences are fickle. As a broad example (pun not intended), Sydney Sweeney is objectively attractive, but sometimes we need to be reminded that her place in history – as a babe – will only occupy a small space: one inhabited by the ghosts of celebrity babes past, like Farrah Fawcett or Marilyn Monroe.
Same goes for legendary performances: they only become discourse if viewers put the proverbial poster on their wall. As much as I admire Dunaway, there’s only a handful of movies out of her six-decade career I can definitively name – most from one era.
[cont’d]
You could say the same of Old-Hollywood actress Joan Crawford who – despite also having a long career & Oscar win – I can only say I’ve sought out one of her movies as a post-script. I may never have the interest or energy to watch any others, but Joan will always remain the subject of Mommie Dearest.
MD hangs (punny!) on Dunaway’s feral turn as Crawford, which elicited mockery on release but retrospectively encompasses all the right choices. It’s probably unavoidable that someone so extreme all the time would fall into camp, but Crawford – as portrayed by Dunaway – is camp: a Norma Desmond in her middle age, desperate to keep her name in the headlines, by whatever means necessary.
Adopted daughter Christina Crawford’s memoir (on which the movie is based) must read like de Sade with how much Joan took the job of parenting for granted. 40-years-plus hasn’t dampened any impact of the film’s dramatization of abuse: the fabled “wire hanger” scene is paced & played so well that it doesn’t give Faye’s Joan the opportunity to disappear into parody.
Other moments aren’t so lucky: often, a shot will linger too long on the mugging – as much as it’s role-appropriate – when a cutaway, or calculated edit, would have helped give agency to a viewer’s interpretation, as opposed to having their empathy blackjacked (prominent instances would be “I can handle the socks” and her final, fruitless seduction of Steve Forrest’s Greg).
Regardless, Mommie Dearest is a gold nugget of a performance in an abundant deposit of effective cringe, worthy of being prospected by any film lover.
//wd 6.21.2025
Cover of the North American DVD release sourced from dvdlady.com (unsponsored). As of publication, Mommie Dearest is available in Western Canada for paid streaming rental on Amazon Prime, but you can most-likely find the physical media in any thrift store bargain bin for five bucks or-less.
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