Review: HBO's "Mildred Pierce" is a Surprising Disappointment

Director Todd Haynes and Kate Winslet

On one hand, out director Todd Haynes doing a miniseries version of Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet no less, sounds like pure gold. The 1945 movie version is a melodrama, and as Haynes proved with his 2002 movie Far From Heaven, he may be the only contemporary director alive who can pull off melodrama without OD-ing on the irony and turning it into outright camp.

On the other hand, you know what they say about remakes: filmmakers should only tackle flawed movies with terrific premises, not movies that are already undisputed classics.

And Mildred Piece is a well-deserved classic — a movie that is both melodrama and film noir, with Joan Crawford (and Ann Blyth and Eve Arden) at the very peak of their considerable talents. 

That warning to filmmakers to stay away from remaking celebrated films turns out to be prescient: HBO's Mildred Pierce is surprisingly unsatisfying. With an oeuvre that also includes the terrific Poison and Safe, but also I'm Not There and Velvet Goldmine, Haynes is proving to be a maddeningly inconsistent director.

Yes, yes, I know that Haynes' five-part miniseries, starting this Sunday on HBO, isn't a "remake" of the movie exactly — this miniseries is based on the 1941 novel by James M. Cain upon which the Joan Crawford movie is based, and there are definitely differences (no noir-ish murder, for one thing, and no flashback). But that's like saying that a movie version of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book wouldn't be seen as a remake of the famous movie.

Despite differences, the story will be recognizable to anyone who's seen the movie: brass-balled Mildred Pierce finds herself unexpectedly a single mother raising two kids. But it's not so much her entitled daughter Vida who resents that she must now work for a living (as in the movie); it is Mildred herself, who refuses to be subservient to anyone, even as a waitress, despite her dire circumstances. Instead, she starts a chain of three restaurants where she can call the shots.

But as Vida grows older (played as a child by Morgan Turner for three of the series' five parts, and by Evan Rachel Wood for the last two), she internalizes Mildred's pride/snobbery, and becomes a  Veruca Salt-like child-monster, asking more and more of her long-suffering mother, who, despite some early signs of backbone, quickly becomes The Giving Tree, excusing all of Vida's obvious faults and giving more and more of herself, until her there's nothing left, financially or figuratively.

The problems with this project are many.

First, the story's simply not very engaging. The makers of the 1945 movie were right to add the structure of the flashback and the murder mystery to what is otherwise essentially the slight, meandering story of a mother and daughter who resent each other. The filmmakers here haven't really done themselves any favors keeping Vida an outright cartoon, about as over-the-top as a character in another 1950s melodrama, Patty McCormack's Rhoda in The Bad Seed. (When Wood takes over the role in the fourth episode, she tones it down a little, but only a little.)

The first episode in the miniseries is by far the weakest, never really bothering to establish the 1930s social caste system of which Mildred is so incredibly resentful (readers of the book wouldn't need this context — they were all living it — but I'm not, and it's basically what the story is about). More importantly, why exactly does Mildred resent this status quo so? Her friends obviously don't.

Indeed, Mildred is almost a complete cipher: she absolutely refuses to take a job waitressing, because it's beneath her, but she'll sleep with the slimy best friend of her ex-husband ... well, just because he's slightly persistent. She haughtily refuses to be a housekeeper, because the woman of the house is a bitch. But wait, now she will be a waitress, putting up with all manner of indignities from the boorish customers?

It doesn't help that the already-thin narrative repeats so many scenes and situations twice for emphasis — mostly, I guess, because they have five hours to fill.

Things get a little better from the second episode on, once the movie adds the plot-line of Mildred's career as a restaurateur. I suppose it's not necessarily a bad thing that Vida never gets her comeuppance (as in the movie), and the final episode here has a reasonably decent twist, to make it seem like the last five hours weren't a complete waste of time. But I couldn't help asking myself: "Wait. They made me sit through all this why exactly?" As for the love story — the man Mildred ends up with — literally had my head reeling.

In short, the source material for the 1945 movie, faithfully retold here, just isn't that strong.

The biggest problem, hands down, is one of tone — which is a surprise coming from the director who was so pitch-perfect recreating the look and feel of a 1950s Douglas Sirk film in Far From Heaven (which remains one of my favorite films of all time). Is Mildred Pierce melodrama, shot in the style of the time in which it was created (while also being a commentary on and homage to melodrama, and the angst-y issues it focused on)?

Guy Pearce as Monty

At times, it feels like that's what Haynes is going for, especially with the much slower, 1950s pacing. But there's much contemporary nudity, and while some of the acting is in the scenery-chewing, heightened 1950s style (especially by Guy Pearce and Turner), some of it is realistic (Winslet, James LeGros), creating a clash, where you're confused what the filmmaker even intends.

Only Mare Winningham, as oh-so-practical Ida, perfectly straddles the line, creating a character that feels both retro yet fully believable (as in Far From Heaven).

It's true, the costumes are wonderful, but the lighting here is dark and flat — the exact opposite of the vibrant (and celebrated) black-and-white cinematography of the original Mildred Pierce.

And where's the social commentary, or at least the camp? Why should we care about this hackneyed 1941 melodrama now? It feels like, at best, a curiosity and, at worst, a vanity picture.

A five-part mini-series based on the novel Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet and made by the celebrated director of Far From Heaven? Sounds good on paper. Alas, that's where it should've stayed.