Mommie Dearest (1981)
Director: Frank Perry
Had I seen this before: Yes
Mother: Joan Crawford
Loves: Clean floors
Hates: Wire hangers
Good mom? Deeply flawed mom, complicated person
It didn’t seem right to discuss movies about moms without acknowledging one of cinema’s most infamous matriarchs—Faye Dunaway in Joan Crawford drag, white face cream like kabuki makeup, hair wild and eyes wilder, strongly expressing her preferences re: clothes hangers. I hadn’t seen this since well before I had children and I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it now. Christina Crawford, after all, is a real person working through real childhood trauma in her memoir, and that seems like a tough thing to have fun with, you know? And after my rewatch I still wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it—did I actually…like this movie with a couple of scenes excepted? Did I just appreciate the nostalgic 1980s version of midcentury Hollywood? Is it even camp, at the end of the day?
Fortunately for me, the copy of the DVD that I got from my library included a commentary track with Serial Mom director himself, Mr. John Waters, so I fired that up for an expert opinion to help me clarify my own feelings about it, and I’m glad I did. (John Waters is in a category of directors including David Lynch and Guillermo del Toro whose work I am mixed on but who I could listen to talk about any movie, all day long. If those other two gentlemen ever want to offer their takes on the choices Faye Dunaway is making in this film, I will be 100% ready and waiting.) John and I did not agree on every single point—he may be in the top 0.5% of cool Baby Boomers, but there are still some generational differences there in relation to acceptable parenting styles—but he mounts an argument that this movie is not camp, rather a mostly-successful melodrama with a few moments that are too over-the-top, and I have to say it was pretty persuasive.
The opening scene of the film is by far my favorite, probably because I don't particularly enjoy yelling but I have watched many a “Get Ready With Me” video, of which this is a historically glamorous version. This scene genuinely made me worry that I was going to have to stand before you and launch a full-throated defense of this entire film, which will not in fact be happening, but a full-throated defense of the first five minutes seems manageable. A beautiful art deco-style clock shows the time as 4:00. A white-gloved hand reaches over to switch off the buzzer and in the darkened room, a figure emerges from satiny sheets. Paramount Pictures Presents. Faye Dunaway. Mommie Dearest. We see the arms of the robed figure pour water from a glass decanter over a large bowl of ice. Jacob Marley-like bandages are removed from a face that we still have not seen. Slender arms and beautifully manicured hands employ a white bar of soap as though they will imminently be performing surgery. (“I’m not mad at you,” Joan will later tell a housecleaner who has failed to live up to her standards. “I’m mad at the dirt.”) The scrubbing continues to the point that I have to pause and put on some hand lotion.
The mystery face is splashed repeatedly with steamy water and then plunged into the ice. I recall that a podcaster I listen to very recently described plunging her face into a bowl of ice water in the morning at the urging of TikTok and realize that everyone always thinks they’re inventing things that have been around for ages. John Waters informs me that Kathleen Turner did the same thing when filming Serial Mom: “instant facelift.” I consider going to the kitchen to try it, but am ultimately too lazy comfortable with the natural aging process. A (dare I say Millennial?) pink shower with multiple shower heads. A cup of coffee. An infinite library of shoes. A very glamorous back, with cascading brown hair, as the figure pulls on a long coat and covers her head with a scarf. A long, long staircase. Clicky heels. Out the front door and directly into a black car, where a driver is holding open the door. We still have not seen her face.
In the early-morning darkness of the backseat, the well-scrubbed hand turn the pages of a script: The Ice Follies of 1939. A stack of photos are signed with a beautiful, looping autograph. The black car pulls into the entrance of the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer studios. A close-up on eyelids, lips, lashes, as makeup is applied. Long white ice skates are laced up, then knock at the door: “We’re ready for you, Miss Crawford.” And she turns. Faye Dunaway is Joan Crawford, and she’s ready to go to work.
I’m sorry, but to me, that’s cinema. There’s something so quietly sumptuous about this opening, and so fascinating in that it lets you know right away: this is a film based on Christina’s memoir, but it is Joan’s movie through and through. It has also wordlessly told you so much about this character. Her relationship to germs and dirt leans toward the Howard Hughes end of the spectrum; although she is surrounded by material opulence, there is no lounging, only discipline and hard work; we the audience may be luxuriating in these hushed early morning hours but Joan is preparing for battle. Every day.
This is not to say that I think this movie is entirely sympathetic to its version of Joan Crawford, or that she is positioned as its hero. But despite many harrowing scenes of what we as modern audiences can clearly interpret as emotional abuse, she is not exactly presented as a full-fledged villain, either. She seems to exhibit signs of OCD, possibly manic episodes, certainly substance abuse. Narcissism for sure (The matching outfits! The soap opera thing! Incredible), but it’s pretty run-of the-mill Hollywood star grade. Were the movie shown solely through Christina’s lens, it would absolutely lean into horror—being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to help butcher rose bushes or be screamed at about bathroom floors and wire hangers* or having your hair cut off in jagged hunks for the most minor of infractions or being shipped off to the nuns because you got caught making out with a boy—there is a terrifying monstrosity to these events taken in isolation. But the movie is consistently showing us Joan’s side of things, the pressures she is under, the impact of her past, the reasons she believes what she’s doing is legitimately the best thing for her children regardless of how misguided.
There are even points at which it is very difficult not to full-out root for her. You’re on her side when she is unceremoniously dumped by MGM after years of service for not being new and fresh enough. You’re happy when she lands the lead role in Mildred Pierce and goes on to win her only Oscar for it. (I did watch the 1945 version of Mildred Pierce after this and I have to say, those ice face baths were working because Joan Crawford is stunningly beautiful in that movie and not at all like the overwrought, slightly grotesque version that Faye Dunaway is bringing.) You are practically cheering when she turns that steely will toward the entirely male board of directors of Pepsi-Cola and informs them that this ain’t her first time at the rodeo.
All of which makes sense in terms of trying to capture a genuinely larger than life figure, but must be slightly heartbreaking as the daughter who is forever being overshadowed, even in her own story. Christina Crawford was not at all pleased with this film, and I can understand why—in many ways it really does her dirty, particularly the ending, which I think is terrible (John and I disagree on this point) and almost seems to indicate that this spicy tell-all was just petty revenge for being left out of the will. Do I recommend this as a serious examination of of child abuse? Or a masterclass in acting? No. Do I recommend it as a surprisingly watchable couple of hours, especially when accompanied by John Waters dropping tantalizing blind items and informing you that he always had to take his shoes off to go into Pia Zadora’s house? I really do.
*My number one question about this, the movie’s most famous scene, is why would a nine-year-old child have anything to do with what clothes hangers are in the home? My children are 12 and 14 and I’m not confident they could source clothes hangers if you gave them $200 and a ride to the store. They are not entirely successful at utilizing clothes hangers most of the time. I realize this is due to my unforgivably lax parenting and the fact that I have not forced them to eat enough extremely rare steak. Oh, wait…
The Perfect Steak from Kitchen Sanctuary
One significant battle of wills between Christina and Joan is fought over a plate of truly bloody steak which Joan insists is healthy and Christina insists is not going into her mouth, thank you very much. Because she refuses to eat her dinner she is left to sit at the table with it for unknown hours (John Waters, unimpressed, reports that his mother also made him do this “and I didn’t write a book about it” and I’m sorry to say I had almost the exact same thought when I first watched this bit). But the next day at breakfast she is again served the steak, and again, and again.
I gotta say, I seared this for about five seconds and it still doesn’t look as red as the one on screen, so I feel Christina on this one. So much so that immediately after this picture it went right back in the pan until it was actually, you know, cooked. My cave-dwelling ancestors didn’t discover fire just for me to be out here eating raw cow.
Up next: A film that I was surprised to discover does not take place entirely on a train