Taking the stage at the Ziegfeld last Monday for the premiere of the long awaited HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, director Todd Haynes dedicated the night to mothers, “This is a movie about a mom. Mine passed away while we were making it.”
Starting top down, he introduced the cast: Kate Winslet: “She delivers a seismic career defining performance,” he noted, and in her career that's saying a lot. Winslet got up, splendid in a Stella McCartney sheath with polka dots on sheer fabric, her blond waves pinned back in a French twist. The stellar ensemble followed suit: Guy Pearse, James LeGros, Melissa Leo, Mare Winningham, Evan Rachel Wood, her blond tresses done like a long Veronica Lake do. Composer Carter Burwell stood up and bowed, his newborn in a snuggly. The night extended to dads as well.
If you are nostalgic about the James M. Cain's 1941 noir novel, or the 1945 movie starring Joan Crawford in an Oscar winning performance, think again. Haynes makes the material his own, more Far From Heaven with its take on the limitations of American women's lives.
This is an epic 5-part film set in depression era '30's and Mildred Pierce is one resourceful woman in a way that may feel resonant in today's economy. Principled and full of pride, she throws her cheating husband out and takes a job as a waitress in a Hollywood hash house much to the horror of her hoity-toity daughter Veda. In the 2 parts shown, Veda is played by a young actress, Morgan Turner. By part 3, Wood takes over the role as the drama becomes more emblematic of the troubled relationships between mothers and daughters.
Director Lena Dunham, whose debut film, the much acclaimed Tiny Furniture, featuring her own mother playing egad, her own mother, has a bit part in the miniseries, a nurse in a harrowing hospital scene. Ilene S. Landress, a producer of Mildred Pierce is developing an HBO project with her called Girls. You can't believe the sex these young people are having, she said of Dunham's new series, and I don't mean Mildred Pierce kind of sex, referring to the tasteful scenes with Winslet in a slip, or genteel and bare-breasted with Guy Pearce as the gigolo Monty. Added Landress of the film's locations, particularly the Glendale, California house where the Peirce family resides: We imported palm trees to Glen Cove.
The after party at the Plaza Hotel was a riot of New York arts/film people, among them John Waters, John Cameron Mitchell, Mira Nair, Jason Reitman, Paul Haggis, Bob Balaban, Steve Buscemi. Oren Moverman, Stanley Crouch and Harry Evans. And because Mildred Pierce opens a restaurant serving only chicken and waffles, we thought the dinner menu would be a no-brainer. The surprise highlight of the buffet: short ribs.
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