So, admittedly I'm no expert, but I've taken several childhood development courses and a psychology of trauma course, and we learned that it's not uncommon for an abusive parent to concentrate their attention on one child and leave the rest relatively spared. It's entirely possible Christina's younger sisters never suffered direct abuse from their mother because they weren't the targets.
Considering the rumours a botched abortion is the reason behind Crawford's inability to have kids, I can't be only one to think the 'no wire coathangers' scene was a subtle nod and a wink to that incident.
I honestly don't care how bad Joan Crawford's life was before she adopted her children. There is no excuse for punishing kids for your own perceived shortcomings in life.
As crazy and comedic as it looks, to me, the overblown acting actually feels real, and I can relate to Christina, because I know how an over controlling parent does react, and that acting, despite it’s unbelievability on the screen, is very real if you’ve ever lived under the roof with a hysteric crazy person from a young age.
I never found the wire hanger scene funny. It is quite scary. The issue was this women is portrayed having adopted these kids as a publicity stunt to improve her image once her career was failing. She didn't car for them, and couldn't handle that she was past her prime. The children were the only ones she could unload her frustrations on, sadly. The incident with the soap opera is proof enough, at least for the film's narrative that the women was clinging to a career was over. She was her own worst enemy.
This was NOT the worst movie of the 1980s by ANY stretch: in that decade we also got Nukie, Jaws: The Revenge, Leonard Part 6, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Going Bananas, Superman IV: The Quest For Peace...
As a person with a parent with borderline personality disorder, her performance is 100% spot on. the fact that no one believes it though is kinda alienating.
Not gonna lie, I have never been able to watch this movie in its entirety. It hits way too close to home. Everyone who laughed at it clearly has absolutely no idea what it's like being raised by a narcissistic mother, or suffered any abuse in general. They have no idea just how lucky they are.
I kinda have to agree with Brad Jones’s defense of Faye Dunaway’s performance. Yes it’s over-the-top but if you read a few of Joan Crawford’s actual quotes you do get the impression she was a very larger than life person. It’s kind of hard to have someone play her and not be at least a little over the top. But that doesn’t fix a lot of the movies other problems.
Faye nailed the tantrum of a narcissistic mother with depression/anxiety. I have been woken up from a dead sleep to do laundry and dishes while mine stood ten feet away screaming at me. At 3 am. When I was 10.
Believe it or not, I think Christina at one point actually said that Faye's performance was 'understated' when compared to how Joan actually was at times, especially during the "night raids" when the infamous wire hanger incident took place.
I think I get the “Worst Movie of the Decade” monicker, if they marketed a real woman’s traumatizing abuse as a campy melodrama. If I were Christine I would have been pissed off enough to sue. That’s hella not okay.
I think that you don't know how is to live with a total unpredictable overreacting abusive drunk person, I don't think that she was overrating or acting like crazy, alcoholic, unpredictable and controlling people can be like that, one moment they are nice and kind, and the next they totally overreact throwing a temper tantrum and trying to victimise everyone around them, mostly people that have less power than them.
I watched this movie a few years ago, & when that scene came on- while legit terrifying (how anyone could have found it funny is insane to me; I don't care how bad a movie it is, mislabling it as somehow comedic is a gross mistake), I was also thinking, "if you didn't f*cking want wire hangers used,
