No cult movie list would be complete without Mommie Dearest. And though it had a big budget, a huge studio release, and the lead portrayed by a critically acclaimed star like Faye Dunaway, things just went wrong in all the most wonderful and campy ways possible, becoming the cult icon it is now. Mommie Dearest was absolutely intended to be an Oscar winner, and Faye truly felt that she\u2019d get it for Best Actress, and her performance really is a wonder to behold, just for all the wrong reasons. Or right ones, depending on who you ask. When it was released to poor reviews, Faye Dunaway became quite embarrassed by her over-the-top performance and has since refused to discuss the movie at all and obviously wishes it never even happened. But it did, and thankfully so, because now we have the joy of making fun of it. All within the realm of good taste, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faye Dunaway portrays motion picture legend Joan Crawford, not the side of her that fans and moviegoers fell in love with on the silver screen, but rather who she was outside of the studio and as a mother to her disgruntled daughter Christina Crawford. You see, Christina released a tell-all book in 1978 about how growing up with Joan was a miserable, anxiety-filled rollercoaster of child abuse that never waned from the time she was adopted until Joan’s death when Christina was 39 years old. The book was about as shocking as they come, of course leading it to become a huge bestseller, because who doesn\u2019t love to hear all kinds of dirty laundry about one of the most famous movie stars in the world? And Christina totally didn\u2019t hold back when it came to spilling the tea; she described incidents of abuse and craziness by her mother that were enough to tarnish Joan’s reputation forever. And with any great book, it was destined to become a movie, and a few years later, it did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casting Faye Dunaway was a brilliant choice because with a few simple makeup tricks, it became hard to tell if Faye looked like Joan or if Joan looked like Faye. And I think most people ride the line on whether her acting was really good or really bad. I\u2019m sure the overacting is on purpose, because that\u2019s how the book described Joan Crawford as being. And the scenarios in the book were depicted almost verbatim as Christina wrote them. And Faye Dunaway is absolutely known for her impressive acting prowess, so where did it all go wrong? I think Faye just took it too seriously; I mean, she really gave this role all that she had within her. But the content was just too over the line for most people’s taste. We are talking about child abuse here, and by a famous actress whom the world revered. Faye played the role with conviction, and the scenes that depict what Joan Crawford had to deal with throughout the ups and downs of her extensive career are pretty touching, but it was the child abuse scenes that give this film its reputation for going too far. It wasn\u2019t just the scenes of Joan beating Christina with wire hangers or chopping all her hair off; it was the intensely cruel emotional abuse that Joan was also capable of inflicting on her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, we can all be very sympathetic to poor Christina’s plight, but I\u2019m not sure if Joan was clinically insane, which is definitely how many scenes in this movie suggest she could be at times. It\u2019s the absurdness of her freakouts that is so entertaining here, and you end up finding yourself feeling guilty for catching yourself laughing at them. Child abuse isn\u2019t funny at all, but for some reason in this movie it is. You almost find yourself wanting Joan to be even more of a lunatic because that\u2019s what makes the movie so much fun to watch. Faye actually screams herself hoarse in some scenes, over pretty much everything possible, in the dramatic fashion that only someone like Joan Crawford potentially could. And it\u2019s this relentless overdramatization present throughout the entire movie that makes for such an entertaining ride, exhausting though it may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 As much as was poured into it, both money and talent, Hollywood gave it a nay, and it was razzied to a great extent, heavily panning Faye Dunaway’s performance until she eventually refused to acknowledge it or even talk about it. But it eventually gained some traction on both TV and rentals, and people began to appreciate its camp value, and its popularity grew very much over time. Now it\u2019s considered a highly quotable camp classic that people enjoy for all the things it tried desperately not to be, but became anyway. Joan Crawford must be rolling in her grave ever since the day of its release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n