With a narrative that sprawls out over five-plus hours, the DVD and Blu-ray release of Mildred Pierce isn’t exactly hurting for more content. Even so, it doesn’t feel wrong to ask for more behind-the-scenes stuff, considering how amazing the show itself is.

In 1931 California, housewife Mildred Pierce (Kate Winslet) can barely keep up her household, let alone keep tabs on her unemployed husband, Bert (Brían F. O’Byrne), who doesn’t even bother to hide his philandering nature. When she finally kicks him out, Mildred only has herself to depend on to support her two young daughters Ray and Veda (Quinn McColgan, Morgan Turner). A waitress job leads her to make a killing by selling her own homemade pies, and she eventually finds a way to open her own restaurant. The upturn in Mildred’s financial status doesn’t instantly improve her situation, but as she copes with personal tragedies and family strife, finding love unexpectedly may help complete her life. Or it might make it even more complicated.

Stepping into the shoes and stockings once filled by Joan Crawford, Winslet has the unenviable task of playing an already iconic character who’s written drastically different from her previous incarnation. Her take on her Mildred — which has won her a Golden Globe, an Emmy and plenty more baubles — is no less fascinating to watch, though, as she struggles with the Depression-era challenges of the typical middle class woman with even more piled on, trying to make it on her own while her eldest daughter looks down on her.

As the haughty Veda, Turner has a somewhat disturbing skill for portraying an adult in a child’s body, deriding her mother for her working class sensibilities, no matter how bountiful the family bank account becomes. And, as condescending as she can be as an adolescent, Veda is even worse as an adult, with Evan Rachel Wood as the fully grown girl whose sense of entitlement is deplorable. When the young ingénue spouts the line, “Oh, ye gods and little fishes,” it’d make anyone want to smack her. Guy Pearce is superior in the role of Monty, Mildred’s on-again, off-again lover, a polo-loving playboy on the rocks helping himself to the fruits of his lady’s labors with little interest in where the cash flow begins. O’Byrne, Melissa Leo, Mare Winningham, James LeGros and Hope Davis are used sparingly in supporting parts, but each makes an impression even though the entire story is built purely around Winslet.

Conceived by Todd Haynes as a flawless recreation of James M. Cain’s 1941 novel, this miniseries indulges in sections of the book the original movie adaptation could not due to production restrictions, most notably the multiple sex scenes, some of which are still shocking even today. If you need someone to strip down, obviously the first choice is the girl who bore all in Titanic. When she has her clothes on, Mildred still catches our eye as a proud and self-supporting gal in a time period when that was frowned upon. The divergence in her drab pastel beginnings and the opulent, well-to-do circles — in which she’s involved after she becomes a business success — are made all the more manifest by the demands of Veda, who wraps herself in furs, insists on costly piano lessons, and eventually becomes an operatic diva to match her already selfish personality.

Haynes directs each of the five segments with a slow and steady pace that’s off-putting at times but hits all the right notes. Past HBO miniseries like John Adams, Band of Brothers and The Pacific may be more epic and larger in cast and crew, but even though the story here spans about a decade, the director keeps a tight handle on the material and never lets up on what he intends to create. The downside of the DVD release is, unlike John Adams or Band, there’s a minimal amount of extra features. Audio commentary from Haynes and his colleagues is a start, but there’s precious little else to delve into and learn about the process of mounting such an affair.

Mildred Pierce may have little additional frills, but without being loaded with these supplements, the price is much more agreeable than other box sets of its kind. Like one of Mildred’s chicken and waffle platters, the packaging is nothing fancy, but the meal itself is simply grand. Still, a few additional biscuits never bankrupted anyone…

Show rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars

DVD rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars

Cincopa WordPress plugin