ninasimone2018 Nice adaptation, but the script is based on an aweful one-sided writing, it starts off as promising drama when the lead character sends off her husband to his lover and is left to fend for herself and works hard to earn a living, then the writting takes a wrong turn after personal loss and business success instead of being happy she turns into an opposite of a kept woman and keeps a man instead and argues with her spoiled daughter and brat and tolerates this crap, mind you this is a third episode, hopefully she comes to her senses. it is watchable and enjoyable thanks to kate winslet performance but irritating at the same time. Ultimately if its supposed to be study of mother daughter relationship that tolerates a lot because of guilt and loss then ok, i get and would have saved five hrs having known...

rindy-69376 I had high hopes for this mini series. After all it was an HBO production with a great cast. If only the writing was as such. The first 2 episodes were actually good enough (if not a little slow) to make me want to watch the rest. The last 3 episodes are a waste of time. The characters were never really developed. This young Veda was not the heinous spoiled brat that we had come to expect and understand in the Joan Crawford version. We never see Kate Winslet spoil young Veda or see how truly spoiled and ungrateful Veda was. Veda as a young adult went on some tirades and talked in circles & at times I was wondering what she was screaming about. She never really acted ashamed of her mother or her station in life as in the original version. Nor did she ever act like she hated her mother (no more than any other teenage girl), which was the driving force behind everything Mildred did. She did it for Veda's love and approval. This Veda has a career and fame. The ending just left me scratching my head.

SnoopyStyle It's 1930's L.A. Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet) has been abandoned by her unemployed husband Bert leaving her with their young daughters Veda and Ray. She has been trying to make ends meet by selling her home-made pies. She is forced to take a lowly waitress job in Hollywood. Veda finds out and berates her for embarrassing the family. Mildred tells her that she's preparing to open her own restaurant. Mildred is sleeping with Bert's former real-estate partner Wally Burgan who comes up with a place to start the restaurant. Due to tax reasons, the scheme requires Mildred to divorce Bert. She begins dating polo-playing playboy Monty Beragon (Guy Pearce). He does no work but he gets an income from a fading fruit import business. While secretly away with him, Ray gets sick and later dies. With her waitress friend Ida Corwin's help, her chicken-and-waffles restaurants become highly successful. Mildred doles on Veda but she turns more and more rotten.This is a five parts HBO mini-series based on the 1941 novel and most well-known for the 1945 film adaptation. For me, this is a tragic mother and daughter story. The drama only gets great when Evan Rachel Wood arrives in part four. The younger actresses who play Veda in the first three parts do their very best. It's not their fault but the drama is limited to a few interesting scenes. This is a failure of adaptation. The first three parts are too plodding and fails to grab the drama by its throat. The saving grace is Kate Winslet and her never-ending humanity. Despite the slow start, she keeps the story going and there is value to a more expansive exposition than the 1945 film. It would have helped to concentrate this five parter into a two or three parter.

jc-osms For me the shadow of Joan Crawford looms large over this re-telling of James M Cain's novel, her Oscar-winning performance in Michael Curtiz's 1946 film noir re-established her career from "has-been" status. Kate Winslet's an Oscar winner too but these are still large shoes to fill and I wasn't completely convinced she did so after 5 hour-long episodes of Hollywood Golden Age recreation-specialist Todd Haynes recent production. She does her American accent well and certainly enters whole-heartedly into the part as the constantly striving Mildred, abandoned by her husband with two young children to bring up who'll stop and stoop at nothing to do the best for her kids, even if one of those kids turns out be the devil's daughter in terms of selfishness, disrespect and outright cruelty and vindictiveness. Somehow though, Winslet just fails to really trawl the depths of despair and desperation her character warrants plus is it just me or does she appear a bit too young for the part, indeed she seems to age very little as the drama proceeds.One also suspects the action unfolds a bit slower on the screen than it did in the original pulp-fiction novel. This production is over three times the length of the original movie and it does feel like it sometimes. I did appreciate that director Haynes stayed true to the book's original ending although it made me look a little foolish to my wife, to whom I'd confidently promised a big dramatic finish like I'd seen in the old movie.As you'd expect with this director, the period of 30's LA is reproduced beautifully both inside and outside and he gets good quality acting from the actors supporting Winslet. I would say though that the replacement of young Veda by older Veda is a bit sudden with little resemblance between the two actors. Of the two of them, I was more impressed by the younger version, the actress in question may not thank me for saying this but to my way of thinking, she has a naturally sardonic, even cruel visage. I also liked the actor playing husband number one and three while Guy Pierce revels in the flashy role of Monty Berragan, the penniless dandy living on old glories and a fading charm.In conclusion then, despite the question mark in my mind over Winslet's casting, this was still a compulsive soap-opera come thriller helped by stylish direction, impressive production values and good ensemble acting.