By Richard Winters
My Rating: 6 out of 10
4-Word Review: Treating her children cruelly.
Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) is a famous actress who longs to have children, but unable to have any of her own. The adoption agencies reject her attempts to get a child because she’s divorced and a career woman, so she gets her boyfriend Gregg (Steve Forrest), who’s rich and influential, to pull-some-strings, which ultimately gets her a baby girl named Christina (Mara Hobel). Joan though proves to be a very strict parent and enforces harsh rules, which Christina rebels from and this leads to even harsher consequences. As Christina grows older, (Diana Scarwid) she begins a life on her own away from her mother including a fledgling acting career where she stars in the soap opera ‘Summer Storm’, but when she gets ill her mother, desperate to recharge her failing career, takes over Christina’s role while she’s recovering in the hospital that further erodes their already tenuous relationship. When Joan ultimately dies and Christina finds that both her and her brother have been written out of the will she decides at that point to write a tell-all book that will scratch away the glossy image of her famous mother and instead paint a ‘true’ portrait of who she really was.
The film is based on the autobiography of the same name written by Christina Crawford that was published in 1978 to much controversy as both family and friends denounced it as sensationalized and not an accurate portrait of Joan. Nonetheless it was a best seller, which quickly lead to a movie deal. Dunaway was excited to take the role convinced it would lead to her second Oscar, but instead, despite being directed by the talented Frank Perry, it was perceived as camp by both the critics and the public alike forcing Paramount to retool its marketing campaign selling it more as a dark comedy much to the dismay of the film’s producer Frank Yablans, who insisted it should be perceived as a serious drama.
On the one hand I think some of it is true. I have no doubt that Joan was a very strong-willed woman who had very particular ideas on child-rearing. Anyone who’s scratched-and-clawed their way to the stardom and able to maintain it over several decades would certainly have to be a driven person and I’m sure some of that would have to rub off in their home life. The scenes where she pushes Christina to be a better swimmer, so that she learns to understand the competitive world out there, made sense and parents pushing their children can happen a lot. Having her being controlling and a clean freak wasn’t all that surprising either and these scenes felt honest and revealing.
The problem is that the film makes no attempt to humanize Joan and instead becomes obsessed with portraying her as being a monstrous kook that scares everyone who’s around her including her dedicated servants who act in petrified fear every time they come near her. The film fails to show any nuance and becomes a big trash feast intent at making her look as awful as possible and leaving no room to even consider the other side, which because she had already died by the time this movie was released, she wasn’t able to give. The most ridiculous moment, which wasn’t in the book, is when she goes into Christina’s room late at night while wearing white face cream that makes her appear almost demonic and then flies into a rage when she notices a wire hanger in her closet that is so over-the-top I’m surprised the cast and crew didn’t break out laughing while it was being shot.
There are issues with Christina too as she’s a little too good to be true. There are several scenes that had it been tweaked just a bit could’ve made her the difficult one instead of the mother. Case in point is when she refuses to do things that her mother asks that could easily be seen by some as Christina being a mouthy brat unwilling to do as she’s told and Joan simply stepping to create some discipline, which is why some attempt at balance would’ve helped and made it seem less like a cheap soap opera.
Spoiler Alert!
Another dumb scene comes near the end when Joan jumps on Christina and begins to strangle her and needs to be pulled off by two other women in the room (Rutanya Alda, Joycelyn Brando). It makes it look like she was close to dying had the two ladies not intervened, but Christina was at the time a grown woman and much younger than Joan, so she should’ve been able to defend herself and fight back. Having her essentially just lay down and take it seemed unrealistic and turning it into an all-out physical cat fight between the two would’ve far more entertaining and believable. Yet despite all this the production values are still top notch and in a tabloid sort of way it’s entertaining.
My Rating: 6 out of 10
Released: September 16, 1981
Runtime: 2 Hours 9 Minutes
Rated PG
Director: Frank Perry
Studio: Paramount
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, PlutoTV, Amazon Video, YouTube
Scopophilia 