Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

jcjs333 I love Kate Winslet and I'll have a hard time writing enough words to say how bad this is. I'm just too old or have such different sensitivities than others. Maybe shows nowadays appeal to the digital , social media folks and i've been sober from Facebook for 2 years. This show was so boring. Kate Winslet is such a great actor but she had 'one face' the whole show which was 'look at me i'm a victim of a spoiled daughter i've created and love kissing her rear end and use me as a doormat'. I kept wanting to see anything, anything at all, that was different than the previous episode but there's nothing to this series. I don't want to knock IMDb because IMDb probably has no control over who leaves these reviews but i really believe people 'connected' with the makers of these shows and their relatives and friends write these reviews but real movie goers don't write these reviews. Nothing new ever happened in this show. Watch the 1st episode and watch the last episode and you've seen the whole series. Sad to say, i've soured on Kate Winslet and will probably avoid her films. All the people at the same look on their faces the whole series. Kate Winslet had this 'poor me' look on her face. Raw, ugly self pity and he daughter is a snot anyone would have straightened out by the time she was 5 years old. Oh, well, to each their own. But, this was bad.

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.

PWNYCNY This series bears only a superficial resemblance to the 1945 movie and even less of a resemblance to the novel, not so much in terms of deviation from the actual storyline but in terms of character development. Here the principal character, Mildred Pierce, is transformed from a frumpy, conventional, clueless, hapless, lower middle class woman into a sultry, vivacious, sexually provocative vixen who pursues her goals through sex. Her daughter observes all this and tries to emulate her mother, which produces conflict because there is only room for one vixen in the Pierce home. Mildred goes through men like a knife through butter (to use a well traveled simile). First she drives away her first husband, then shacks up with her lawyer, then hooks up with a member of the "gentry" (he plays polo) who becomes her second husband and boy toy, and then when things don't work out for her, winds up back with her first husband who apparently is a gluten for punishment. Mildred's manipulativeness is matched only by her emotional insensitivity which at times is so transparent that it is a wonder that anyone can be found anywhere hear her. Amazingly, Mildred cannot understand why her daughter, Veda, hates her, revealing a denseness of thought which underscores Mildred's shallowness and limited intellect. If any character in this story has a legitimate gripe, it is Veda. Growing up in an intellectually and spiritually stale environment, and surrounded by people whose sense of social consciousness stops at the dinner table, the bar room or the bedroom, it is not surprising that Veda cannot wait to flee from everything that reminds her of her mother. Her mother's universe is like a gaping black hole (another simile)- it is empty. In fairness to Mildred, she is a product of a culture that values superficiality, so maybe she can't help being what she is - a superficial and pretentious person. As for the series itself, it is high-quality production that captures the smallness and drabness of Mildred's humdrum world. Ironically, set in "sunny" Southern California, almost down the road from Hollywood, in the 1930s, this story is anything but sunny. Most of the scenes are dark, drab and full of shadows, like Mildred's personality. Mildred rarely laughs, her usual countenance is a scowl. She's also cheap and a penny pincher. There is nothing heroic about her. She is distant from her employees. She has one friend - her business partner, and even that friendship is tenuous. When in need of advice or support, she turns to men, but only when it suits her needs. She is selfish, self-centered, judgmental and prissy. Although the men in her life care for her, she treats them like dirt. There is nothing about her that is dignified. But she excels in two areas: sex and cooking, using both to her advantage to survive in a culture where men predominate and people like eating good food. As a parent, she is emotionally and physically abusive. She is not a above physically smacking her daughter. At times the story becomes almost morbid as the dysfunctional nature of the mother-daughter relationship becomes more apparent and extreme. Probably the most appealing character in the story is Monty Beragon who sees through Mildred's pretentious and manipulative ways, for which he pays the price by becoming a convenient target for Mildred's wrath. Kate Winslett's performance as Mildred Pierce is outstanding. In this series she "is" Mildred Pierce. She captures the essence of the character to the letter. Her performance is a tour de force. She deserves any and all accolades she may have earned for her performance. To compare Winslett's performance with Joan Crawford's would be unfair. Both play different characters in different renditions of the story. Guy Pearce's performance is also excellent as the cynical yet honest Monty Beragon, Mildred's lover/second-husband. Beragon is the only one who has the courage to confront Mildred. Far from being a heal, Monty Beragon is symbol of the beaten-down Depression-era man who has lost everything except his name and is trying to salvage what remains of his self-esteem. He is struggling to maintain his dignity while his world is falling apart. He cares for Mildred, and for a while Mildred reciprocates as long as she can use him to satisfy her own physical needs and wish to improve her social status. The series contains explicit sex scenes which further reveal Mildred's sultry and lascivious nature and magnify the lie that she is living. She uses the facade of a rational businesswoman to hide her own social and intellectual inferiority. The only thing she has going for her is sex. She needs men to help prop up her fragile ego. Veda knows this and detests her mother's phoniness which Veda loathes. Mildred believes that everyone wants to use her when in fact it's the other way around - she's using them, shamelessly. If anyone has any doubts as to Kate Winslett's abilities as an actress, one need only to watch this series and those doubts will be dispelled.

JerzeeGerl I thought this was a decent miniseries. I thought Kate Winslet was great in her role, and most likely would have taken home the Emmy if this had been better written. My biggest complaint about the story - and perhaps this is true in the original novel, I don't know - is that it's never explained as to what happened in Veda's upbringing to make her such a manipulative spoiled bitch. She grows up in the 30s, when most people were lucky if they had regular meals let alone a place to live, yet she's vicious and hateful because her mother works in a restaurant. It's not because of her sister's death because she was like that before her sister's death. Also, I don't understand why everyone falls all over Evan Rachel Wood's performance in this. Really? I thought she was mediocre at best. She chews up the scenery in this miniseries - sooooooooo overacted. The scene where Kate Winslet's character finds her daughter with her husband naked? Evan Rachel Wood's movement and performance reminded me of a soap opera. Truthfully, my opinion is that this miniseries would have been much better with a different - and better - actress playing Veda.