- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 27, 2011
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Critic Reviews
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Preferring to redomesticize Mildred Pierce, Haynes arrives at a film--a five-part, five-hour miniseries--that is merely pretty good.
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This nearly six-hour adaptation is an over-indulgently languid showcase for Winslet to shine as the iconic and ultimate Mother Martyr.
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Extending for five hours over three weekly segments, this luxuriously produced miniseries is so gorgeous, even in its re-creation of the Depression, that it practically shimmers. It's also slow to the point where "languid" doesn't even begin to do it justice.
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While the miniseries is more faithful to the 1941 James M. Cain novel of the same name, Todd Haynes' adaptation (he co-wrote the teleplay, directed and acted as one of the executive producers on this five-part bloated whale) is so draining, it might make you anemic.
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It's a five-part drama that is loyally, unwaveringly true to James M. Cain's 1941 novel and somehow not nearly as satisfying as the 1945 film noir that took shameless liberties with plot, characters and settings.
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You can blame Winslet, or Haynes, or both, but something doesn't fit, and it wrecks everything, above and beyond spending so much time on a story that could have been just as satisfyingly told at half the length.
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I came away from HBO's five-part series with a great deal of respect for Winslet's impassioned performance, but so many other aspects of Mildred Pierce worked against Winslet's naturalistic style that parts of the miniseries ended up being, frankly, a slog.
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When all the storytelling is coming to a climax, there's something missing--the same connection that was absent between Mildred and Veda from the start.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 31 out of 42
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Mixed: 6 out of 42
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Negative: 5 out of 42
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Mar 28, 2011
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Oct 3, 2012
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Apr 10, 2011