It's 1930's L.A. Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet) has been abandoned by her unemployed husband Bert leaving her with their young daughters Veda and Ray. She has been trying to make ends meet by selling her home-made pies. She is forced to take a lowly waitress job in Hollywood. Veda finds out and berates her for embarrassing the family. Mildred tells her that she's preparing to open her own restaurant. Mildred is sleeping with Bert's former real-estate partner Wally Burgan who comes up with a place to start the restaurant. Due to tax reasons, the scheme requires Mildred to divorce Bert. She begins dating polo-playing playboy Monty Beragon (Guy Pearce). He does no work but he gets an income from a fading fruit import business. While secretly away with him, Ray gets sick and later dies. With her waitress friend Ida Corwin's help, her chicken-and-waffles restaurants become highly successful. Mildred doles on Veda but she turns more and more rotten.This is a five parts HBO mini-series based on the 1941 novel and most well-known for the 1945 film adaptation. For me, this is a tragic mother and daughter story. The drama only gets great when Evan Rachel Wood arrives in part four. The younger actresses who play Veda in the first three parts do their very best. It's not their fault but the drama is limited to a few interesting scenes. This is a failure of adaptation. The first three parts are too plodding and fails to grab the drama by its throat. The saving grace is Kate Winslet and her never-ending humanity. Despite the slow start, she keeps the story going and there is value to a more expansive exposition than the 1945 film. It would have helped to concentrate this five parter into a two or three parter.

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.

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.

Classic film fans know well the 1945 "Mildred Pierce" that won an Oscar for its star, Joan Crawford, providing her the comeback vehicle after being fired by MGM.Due to censorship restrictions, the film's story deviated somewhat from the book and, because Crawford was the star, the focus was kept on her, rather than enlarging the story to include Veda's career. Also, several of the characters were combined or omitted.This version, starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, Melissa Leo, Mare Winningham, Brian O'Byrne, and Evan Rachel Ward sticks to the James Cain novel, with dialogue actually lifted from it.The five-part drama still tells the story of Mildred and her obsession with her class-conscious, cold, spoiled, brat daughter Veda and the destruction this obsession costs the hard-working Mildred.As is usual with HBO, the production values are fantastic, perfect in setting the atmosphere of the '40s and the mood of the story. The top-notch acting adds to it, and while there may not have been enough story for the time allotted, it's still excellent, particularly if you have read the novel and/or seen the film.I can't imagine two actresses more different from one another than Kate Winslet and Joan Crawford, and the differences are highlighted here to interesting effect. Crawford played Mildred as strong yet vulnerable; it's an overt performance, as were all of her performances. Her Mildred lets Veda and Monty get away with taking advantage of her. Winslet's Mildred is more insecure, and her strength is inner in that she's a survivor. Her Mildred doesn't seem to realize that Veda and Monty are taking her for a ride, and she comes off like a sap. A sympathetic sap, but a sap nonetheless. In a way, it makes her reaction (taken from the book) when she does realize it all the more powerful.Guy Pearce sounds like Zachary Scott in the film, and he's marvelous with just the right touch of sleaze. As Bert, Mildred's ex-husband, Brian O'Byrne, who was the star of Doubt on Broadway, is excellent. Both Evan Rachel Wood and Morgan Turner (Veda as a child) were wonderful showing Veda's detached, frosty personality. It was episode 3 before I realized that Ida was played the remarkable Mare Winningham, who brightens every film she does. Melissa Leo was wasted as Lucy, but good nonetheless. And a special nod to Leslie Lyles, who played the woman in the employment office - she was a perfect '40s character.The rest of this review is for people interested in the singing in the film.Since James Cain was an aspiring opera singer at one time and the son of an opera singer, opera sometimes enters into his stories, as it does here. Some of the operatic selections for Veda here fit the story, particularly Der Holle Rache (mother-daughter), the Bell Song (luring men with one's voice), and the Casta Diva from Norma. As in the book, she's a coloratura soprano, which her teacher tells Mildred is rare. Not really. The rarest voices in opera are the bass, the heldentenor, and true dramatic sopranos and true dramatic mezzos. I say "true" because often their roles are sung by spintos or even big lyrics.In the HBO film, Veda has an odd repertoire which includes La Mamma Morta, a lyric spinto or dramatic soprano aria -- chosen because it fits Veda's feelings and personality. For instance, the aria contains the line "Porto sventura a chi bene mi vuole! (Evil to those who love me well!) Truer words were never sung. In her concert at the Hollywood Bowl, she sings from Barber of Seville, today sung by a mezzo, but probably back then, a coloratura, and her radio aria is Je Suis Titania, also a coloratura aria.The vocal experts for the 2011 version did not want Veda singing Casta Diva since it is an incorrect choice for a) a young singer and b) her voice, but due to the fact that it's about a love triangle, it was chosen. Sumi Jo, whose recordings dubbed Turner, obviously had never sung Casta Diva, so a recording by Edita Guberova was used instead.Evan Rachel Wood was criticized for lacking correct expression and being too concerned with the lip-synching. I'd like to see the person who made that comment lip synch in Italian and German.