Mildred Pierce (2011)

Is Veda what happens when we shelter children from economic realities? Is she a bitch because her father left? Or simply a bad seed? That we never really find out didn't ruin Mildred Pierce for me. The story, after all, isn't called "Veda Pierce," and what remains is a surprising amount of fun, given that we're talking divorce, Depression and dysfunction.

In HBO's miniseries Mildred Pierce, beginning on 27 March, she embodies the sort of ambition and resilience that might seem ideal during a depression-or even a great recession. That is, she's a function of her time (the one first imagined for her by James M. Cain) as well as ours.

Mildred Pierce is a masterpiece.

Haynes has created not only a rich and nuanced vehicle for his A-list cast--among them Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood and Guy Pearce--he has given us a rare and valuable gift: an American melodrama about class.

HBO has done it again, investing in a project of substance and a lead actress who powers it home.

The new Mildred isn't perfect. Sometimes it has too much time on its hands, holding scenes just because it can. But watching it is time well-spent, because it reminds us that not everyone gets over the rainbow to the place where the dreams you dare to dream really do come true.

After a plodding start, Mildred becomes increasingly absorbing.

A great movie is always a bit of a mystery, and that creative mystery is missing from the center of Haynes's Mildred Pierce, which cannot be faulted for craft or intelligence, but cannot be felt on the gut level of Cain, Crawford, or Curtiz, who might not have had a thought in his head about the story, but directs the hell out of it in pure visual and visceral movie terms.

If you buy the overwrought emotions so ornately expressed, you'll buy this TV movie's conviction. I was occasionally skeptical, but sold by the terrific performances.