Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

larcam1 All the actors did a great job. The 1930's scenery was great. However, (there's always an "however") It was a 2 hour story that took 5 hours to tell. By the time the 5th episode started I had lost interest in the characters and really didn't care about the outcome.I don't know what the director had in mind, but there were far too may facial shots of Mildred Pierce with this sad and bewildered look on her face. The camera slowly panned forever on scenes with no one in them.It was not entertaining at all. The original studio version with Joan Crawford was corny, but at least it was over in 2 hours.Don't waste your time on this one.I give it a 3 rating because the actors were so good, but nothing else worked.

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.

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.

dollylambie-851-398942 I finally got around to watching this mini-series after having it sitting on my DVR since it came out. Many reviewers thought this series too long, even boring at times. But I really enjoyed it, and the extra length of presentation, I thought, really allowed for more in-depth character development and details of the story. I knocked off two stars from my review for two reasons. First reason, the actors.I thought Kate Winslet was every bit as good as Joan Crawford in the 1945 movie. Guy Pearce was far better than Zachary Scott in the 1945 movie. But actors who were far superior in the 1945 version were Ann Blyth as Veda, Jack Carson as Wally, and Eve Arden as Ida. Far, far better. Evan Rachel Wood came nowhere close to Ann Blyth's great performance. The second reason I took off a star was the ending. The 1945 movie was far better. It was just wonderful to see Veda not getting what she wanted and with no one able to come to her rescue. I have the novel, but have not read it yet, so I will have to see how it really ends. One more comment is about the sex scenes and nudity. I thought the ones involving Mildred were very tastefully done, and frankly quite hot at times. It was refreshing not to see her in the sexiest underwear and perfect skinny figure. Just blah white bras and slips, far more realistic. The one nudity scene which I could have done without was that of Veda parading around after she bed Monty. I felt it totally unnecessary, pointless, and even embarrassing - and I'm no prude. I felt all the episodes worth watching and I would watch again.