After her husband leaves her for hisbridge partner, Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) devotes her energies and talentsto providing for her elder daughter, Veda, who suffers from perpetualdissatisfaction. Veda prefers her lifestyle untainted by work, and disdains hermother, a waitress turned restaurant owner, for earning their living. In adisquieting mixture of the dark, unsettling world of film noir and the open,daylit world of melodrama, Mildred Pierce's obsessive love for her daughter endsin a murder which begins the film. In flashbacks the murder emerges as one ofmany interconnected crimes-crimes born, not of physical violence, but rather ofemotional and psychological needs, crimes rooted in the family. Mildred's lovingtoo much is inseparable from her working too much in a classic case of damned ifyou do, damned if you don't, damned if you are a mother.-Kathy Geritz, What FreudForgot: The Mother-Daughter Plot, PFA 1992