When melodrama gets pushed over the top and into the absurd

When a decent 90-minute melodrama is drawn out to six hours over 5 episodes, or "parts," if you will, the effect can be the opposite of what the director intended: instead of increasing the intensity of the drama and the feelings, the longer form attenuates the drama and threatens to push over the top and into the realm of the absurd. Case in point: Todd Haynes's ambitious "Mildred Pierce," which has some things going for it: a nicely captured look of the 1930s, great acting from Kate Winslet. But beyond that - there's hardly a scene that isn't drawn out too long as we watch the rise and fall of Mildred through many, many long takes - as she goes from impoverished divorcee with two daughters and strong but pent passions and on into entrepreneurial business-woman, grieving mother, passionate lover, aspiring socialite, stage mom - and then the downfall, falling for the wrong guy, stupid business decisions to keep up lavish lifestyle, and most of all attempt to dominate her daughter's life, which drives her daughter away and ultimately into completely destructive relationship - all this works more of less when the movie (as the 1945 version did) has a head-long pace but when the pace is slow enough for us to think about all these improbable and overblown twists and turns - e.g., could her daughter at age 20, with no training, suddenly be discovered as an opera star and give sold-out performances at the Philharmonic? - the miniseries kind of breaks apart at the seams. Haynes has some talent obviously and a feel for the retro - I really like Far From Heaven - but he also has a weakness for self-indulgence (e.g., I'm Not There - a movie I was dying to love and couldn't get my mind around), and I hope his next work is less of more.

If it could be told in 90 minutes, why drag Mildred Pierce out to 6 hours?

Half-way through - three "parts" - of the HBO "Mildred Pierce." Reminds me of: I used to be in a writers' group (PAWs, Providence-area Writers), and once presented a story and some in the group said: It should be a novel, and my thought was, sure, I could spend a few years and build this out as a novel, and when I'm done I'd probably look back and say: I could have told the whole thing as a short story. A work of literature, or film or TV or whatever, should have no unnecessary "parts" (Strunk and White, q.v.). Mildred Pierce was a reasonably good Joan Crawford romantic melodrama about a woman's struggles, triumphs, and defeats, circa 1945 (set in the Depression 1930s) - and it was probably about 90 minutes; if the HBO Todd Haynes mini-series could add to this by expanding the story to six hours, well and good, but it seems in watching it that it could definitely be told in 90 minutes flat: the scenes are extended forever, to no purpose, the same information is conveyed again and again, the sex scenes seem ludicrous, the music is dreadful - the strengths are two: Kate Winslet's acting - she's always a total pro - and the period details, which seem pretty accurate though it doesn't look like Glendale, Cal. Haynes is a very indulgent writer/director and I'm not sure what he's doing with these characters but it certainly seems like they don't belong in the same family: a no-good two-timing dad (who at times is really kind and thoughtful?), a bratty and spoiled teenage daughter (who alternates between mother's best friend and deepest foe), and Mildred herself: sometimes a career woman, sometimes a set-upon wife, sometimes ashamed of having to work, sometimes proud of same, devoted to family but willing to run off at the drop of a proverbial hat with the first handsome guy she meets: inconsistencies and confusion of character may have been tolerable in a shorter movie but in this six-parter with its leaden pace we have all too much time to ponder the incongruities and absurdities.