Director: Michael Curtiz
Year Released: 1945
Rating: 2.5
Couldn't quite point out what I found so unappealing about this until I read James Agee's (favorable) review of the film and it clicked: Mildred Pierce (played lazily by Joan Crawford) is a fool, and fools are hard to sympathize with. She spends too much time fawning over her oldest daughter, a pouty little irritant who wants maids to order around and bushels of money to use as a security blanket during the dark days. The daughter, played well, appreciates none of her mother's hard work, and is a constant burden for her whole family (she is, ultimately, the reason for Mildred's first divorce). When the youngest daughter, the one who is satisfied with whatever she's given, passes on (in a series of gawky scenes that feel rushed), it doesn't hit the mother has hard as it has to, and the script quickly forgets it. Where director Michael Curtiz is trying to make Mildred seem "noble" (again, Agee's word), she comes off as pathetic. There are a bunch of other problems as well, mostly involving plot contrivances and an ending that doesn't seem realistic or properly set up (Wasp-wannabe as murderer? Come on.).
