To me, this movie is perfection.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Mommie Dearest is a slow, overacted, boring biopic about a fairly uninteresting person. I understand why this may have camp value, but I don't plan on watching it ever again. With the exception of the "wire hangers" scene, this movie wasn't even worth the first watch.

'Mommie Dearest' is a memoir by Joan Crawford's adoptive daughter, Christina. Apparently behind closed doors, Joan was an absolute nutcase. I am not sure how much of it is real, fake or embellished, but this film adaptation is a definite embellishment.This is by no means an easy film to sit through. It is full of rage, screaming, crying, and torment. Oddly enough, the physical stuff does not happen as much as you'd think. 'Mommie Dearest' is nothing compared to other insane films released this day in age, but this still has its moments that are difficult to sit through. Child abuse will always be a tough pill to swallow, but over-the-top cheesy acting makes this even harder. Often, movies about child abuse are well done. Not here.Faye Dunaway certainly gained notoriety as the late silver screen actress. Some say she was excellent, others say she was unintentionally funny. I am part of the latter. The problem with her portrayal is that she plays Crawford like someone on Saturday Night Live would play her. Joan Crawford in 'Mildred Pierce' was Joan Crawford playing Mildred Pierce. This movie treats Crawford as is her characters in the movies was how she was in real life. Then there's some bits where Dunaway plays Crawford like other actresses at the time. A few times I expected Dunaway to say "Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my closeup."So the movie starts with Joan Crawford's celebrity status on the rise and her wanting to have children. She cannot, so she adopts. The first she adopts is Christina. Surrounding her with money and glam, the only price to pay was her adoptive mother's wrath. Joan is a hard-ass under pressure to be Hollywood's top star. She also does not want her children to be spoiled brats. But Joan definitely crosses the line. The abuse happens sporadically, maybe two or three scenes' worth. But when it does it stays in your mind, completely clouding everything that happens afterwards. The abuse seems like a lot, but actually is not. The biggest stomach-turner is when Christina is just a little girl and Joan finds a wire hanger. Joan goes completely berserk and beats her with it before making a mess in the washroom and making her clean it. The next stomach-turner happens awhile later with Christina as a young woman. A brief interaction gets escalated into Joan choking Christina. An interview with the real Christina says that if the people didn't intervene, she would be dead. The performances by Joan and Christina are pretty bad, but get saved by the last act. After the near-fatal choke scene, Faye begins to play Joan Crawford like Joan Crawford. She plays her like a real person and not a Saturday night Live character. I liked that. The girl that plays Christina simply did a better job just because. it's weird considering how bad she was in the choking scene. While they may do better jobs in their portrayals, the script really lazes out. The one thing that was needed was more explanations of "why?" Joan realizes how awful she has been and the bond between the two grows. Despite the abuse, Joan and Christina have always loved each other. And we are expected to believe that? When Joan goes bat-****-crazy over the metal hangers, why is she flipping out that badly? I get that we are not supposed to sympathize greatly with Joan, but giving any form of insight on the reasons of these wacky situations would have really increased the overall value of the film. As for Christina, she's just there. Getting an insight on the victim would have increased the overall value too. Even when the two of them start to perform better, none of the quintessential questions are ever answered. Not sure how much is real or not, but the final verdict of the movie is an uneven laze. The acting is bad (except the last 20 minutes or so) and the writing is awful. Just skip this and watch Joan Crawford's real films.

Despite "Mommie Dearest" being around for nearly a decade before I was born, I have only just now got round to watching it, and despite all the negativity surrounding the film, the leading lady Faye Dunaway disowning herself from the film, the film picking up the main prize at the Golden Raspberry awards, I actually found it to be quite charming. Indeed I must see something no one else can, as I thought "Mommie Dearest" was an awesome, powerfully moving retelling of the life of Joan Crawford and the upbringing of her two adopted children. Before watching this film, I knew very little about Joan Crawford, now I feel I've been inspired to go out and watch as many of her films as I can, it's gripped me like not many films can. The way the hair and makeup department managed to get Dunaway to look like Crawford as well as they did is pretty impressive, top marks for them..., and despite not actually being there to see whether the film and the sets are faithful to real life, it really does look legit, amazing-amazing truly.The acting is dazzling and hits you where it counts, astounding display of emotion that runs deeply throughout the duration of the film and never lets go for a single heartbeat, it hooks you immediately and refuses to relinquish its powerful grasp. I am shocked and appalled at how much bad press "Mommie Dearest" has received over the years, completely unjust and horrifically unfair, what do people really want huh? It's a good old film depicting the life and times of a good old actress, maybe the actress wasn't exactly good herself, but the film certainly is. My advice is ignore the reviews, ignore the press, and just sit down and enjoy a very stylish and exciting film, people who moan about it don't know what they're missing, for shame.

When Christina Crawford began tapping out her little poison pen biography, little did she know that the book and film adaptation would become cult and camp classics. Faye Dunaway doesn't ACT as Joan Crawford, she BECOMES Joan. The movie doesn't stray far from the book but what Christina Crawford wrote is acted by Oscar winner Dunaway like she was never going to act again. She might argue that after this movie, she didn't act much, and it is often suggested that she blames this film for her acting demise. Poor Faye forgets her role as Evita Peron in First Lady of Argentina and the soporific Disappearance of Aimee. These were the beginnings of her downward spiral, and I would consider Mommie Dearest a high point in that slow descent. She should embrace the film and the love of gay men all around the world that it has engendered. She delivers her lines and what lines they are...Christina Crawford's word bounce off Faye's razor tongue and then slice through her children. The lines are knives, making little cuts into the psyche of her two adopted children (Crawford adopted four but the other two are never mentioned). Many of the lines are now considered classics and commonly recited by gay men around the world, but more than that, they have reduced the multi decade career of Joan Crawford, to a series of pat clichés recited by drag queens the world over...the most famous being "No wire coat hangers EVER" However my favorite line is "I'm not angry at you Helga, I'm angry at the dirt." Joan had issues with dirt and cleanliness.Faye Dunaway gives a compelling performance, and it also proves that when she was considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation, this was not hyperbole. She is terrifying in this film and goes from controlled charm to unhinged rage in seconds. She has captured all of Joan Crawford in her grandeur and her ugliness. This film was considered, in the year it was released, the worst film and was panned and mocked. The fact is, it was ahead of it's time, and one thing we can say about Faye Dunaway, was that she took her biopic characters seriously. She didn't play dress up, she inhabited the characters. The only thing that could make this a better film is if it were a musical.