Mildred Pierce: A Mother’s Unrequited Love For Her Daughter

Mildred Pierce is one of the HBO miniseries that are worthwhile and are not on the cover of their catalog. The miniseries stars Kate Winslet. It is a five-part drama that is unwaveringly faithful to James M. Cain’s 1941 novel. A very different miniseries from the 1945 film that took blatant liberties with plot, characters, and settings. Still, “Mildred Pierce” earned its lead, Joan Crawford, an Oscar.

This miniseries has the luxury of time unlike the movie. It tells you much more about the day-to-day nature of Mildred Pierce’s life. We get a clearer view of the context of melodramatic events, so it moves away from nightmare and noir towards something more diurnal, at least in the first few chapters.

The plot, which begins with a Mildred making cakes for her daughters, transmits serenity to us to move on to pain and horror. The miniseries manages to create empathy for a mother, posing a transcendent question along the way: is there evil in some people?

Mildred Pierce: a miniseries that is almost a collector’s item

This version of Mildred Pierce casts the title role on Kate Winslet, who works wonders with him. It is directed by Todd Haynes, who wrote the adaptation of the script with Jon Raymond. Both put almost the entire weight of the drama on the shoulders of their protagonist. The period setting is astonishingly real, from the magazines, the wallpaper, the food on the plates, and the slightly muted photography.

The story gives new expression to an ancient primal fear: a mother’s fear of being supplanted, destroyed, or disowned by a daughter. Mildred’s tortured relationship with her spoiled daughter, Veda, is a variation on other classics.

Disruption of a mother seeing her offspring is not as I imagined explained in films like The Bad Seed , We Need to Talk About Kevin or, most recently, crimes family .

A mother struggling to get ahead

Mildred Pierce is a stay-at-home mom in Glendale, California, whose life is turned upside down in the Great Depression. Her husband, a failed real estate agent, goes off with another woman and leaves Mildred with no income, all she has to do is the money she makes by baking cakes for the neighbors.

Brian O’Byrne plays her first husband, Bert, who cheats on her. Guy Pearce plays Monty, the lazy rich scoundrel who seduces Mildred and fuels her independence. Melissa Leo is his neighbor and confidant, Lucy and James LeGros is his business advisor (and sometimes lover).

Almost all the scenes and dialogue are taken from the book, including the pretentious airs of Veda, who as a child is played by Morgan Turner. Compared to younger sister Ray (Quinn McColgan), Veda is a child who poisons the atmosphere of the Pierce home. Despite living in a middle-class neighborhood, Veda, who plays the piano, projects herself at a much higher level on the social scale.

What we witness throughout the chapters is an admirable story of Mildred, working with Wally’s backing, opening her own restaurant, succeeding in a man’s world. Meanwhile, Veda remains something of a child prodigy at the piano and Mildred religiously pays for her classes with the best teachers.

Looking for Mildred’s faults in her daughter

The fourth part in the story is four years ahead. We see that circumstances have improved a lot for Mildred. This is where we are introduced to the adult version of Veda, played by Evan Rachel Wood. She is less hostile towards her mother, until a highly respected music teacher gives Veda the bad news: she is not the talented pianist that everyone (especially Mildred) imagined.

Veda becomes immersed in anger and some of his manipulations begins to be discovered. So we start to wonder where Mildred could go wrong. Unconsciously, most viewers assume that their evil must be associated with some maternal failure.

Let’s remember how Mildred was inspired by her daughter’s impossible dreams to continue advancing in the world of work. We see Mildred looking for explanations, justifying the impudence, narcissism and emotional coldness of her daughter.

There are people who do not deserve forgiveness and this includes the daughters themselves

There are very few audiovisual productions that deal with topics as complex as the forgiveness of mothers to daughters after a disturbing event. After continued abuse. After a lifetime of enduring and being silent: how far should a mother’s sacrifice go?

Mildred Pierce is the representation of infinite love. We are aware that a mother almost always forgives more, endures more, and holds to the end something that seems to dictate instinct and bond.

This series shows us that we have to stop demonizing mothers for the adult behaviors of their children. Sometimes, simply, people who do evil exist. They can be talented and even appreciated, which does not prevent them from being very unfair to their mother.

Mildred Pierce, like other mothers, has the right to rebuild her life. We as a society also have to begin to assume it on screen and in our environment.