shipperx | Stephen King Reviews HBO’s ‘Mildred Pierce’ (Reply)

"...Although the mini’s chief selling point with HBO audiences may be Mildred’s steamy romance with wastrel playboy Monty Beragon (beautifully played by Guy Pearce), the most vital sequences have to do with Mildred’s rise to success in a man’s world, first selling her pies and pastries to the hash house where she works, then opening her own restaurant. As distasteful as she finds her waitressing job, Mildred is a careful, almost predatory observer, and working in a come-n-get-it café teaches her all the pitfalls of food service. Chief among them are excess waste and too many choices. When she opens Mildred’s, there are two basic items on the menu: chicken and waffles. She becomes, in a sense, Colonel Sanders in a woman’s body—and quite the splendid body it is. Cain’s novel describes a lady of voluptuous charms. Joan Crawford was not that woman; Kate Winslet is {...} as for Winslet and Pearce … holy crow. I detest the term “chemistry” to describe actors playing people who are sexually attracted to each other, so let’s just say these two are in perfect, ferocious sync. Imagine Bogie and Bacall in hell and you’ll get the idea. Winslet and Pearce don’t just heat up Mildred Pierce; they damn near burn it down.

... She blames the men who gave her too much credit and too much bad advice, but the real culprit is Veda, who hangs on her like a leech, bleeding Mildred dry until she blossoms as a coloratura soprano but not before committing one final act far too shocking for the 1945 version of Mildred Pierce to even contemplate—hence the trumpery murder plot. I think Veda’s last betrayal will jolt even modern viewers, and Evan Rachel Wood is amazing in her penultimate scene.

All the same, there are problems here. Haynes has shown his love for the Hollywood version of America’s past before, most notably in the remarkable but equally hard to like Far From Heaven (2002), and here it has gotten out of control. In words of one syllable? It’s too damn long. I suppose that sounds impudent, coming from a guy who’s written several doorstop-size novels, but I stand by it. When Emperor Joseph II purportedly told Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that his new opera had too many notes, Mozart supposedly replied, “Only as many as necessary, Your Highness.” Using that metaphor, the Haynes version of Mildred Pierce has way too much sheet music...."

Full Review:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-20/stephen-king-reviews-hbos-mildred-pierce/2/