Watching Mildred Pierce and thinking about daughters

Last night I watched the last episode of the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.

Kate Winslet as Mildred Pierce.  From wordandfilm.com.

At first it took me a while to get into it.  I had seen the original, but quite a long time ago, so I both remembered it and didn’t.  Occasionally a shot would jump out at me — or a particular dress — and I would think, yes, I’ve seen that before.  But my memory was so hazy that it was almost as if I were watching the film for the first time.   I knew the basic plot — the increasingly poisonous relationship between Mildred and her daughter — and I remembered the dramatic ending … but Todd Haynes and Jon Raymond’s adaptation finishes quite differently in terms of plot, even as it keeps the original’s sentiment.

What made me

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Still thinking about Girls

And by “Girls” I mean the HBO series written and directed by Lena Dunham.

I don’t get HBO — I don’t get cable at all — so I’ve only seen on episode, by chance, in a hotel room.  My reaction was mixed.  It was funny and painful and truthful and sad and ridiculous and unrealistic — all at the same time.

It’s a show about four girls living in New York — out of college and one of them newly out of money — her internship is unpaid and her parents have just cut her off financially and she only has four essays finished out of her nine-essay memoir which, she believes, will make her the voice of her generation.  “Or at least, a generation… somewhere,” she fumbles.  The girls mostly deal with boys — a too-good boyfriend who becomes a turn-off (because he’s too good) and a not-really-a-boyfriend who, despite all the sex that happens, never seems to turn his not-girlfriend on.  There’s one amusingly meta moment when one character explains Sex in the City to another, and even assigns them combo-packs of Carrie/Samantha/Miranda personas* (one with “Charlotte” hair).

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