My friend George wrote a fabulous piece on Todd Hayne's Mildred Pierce, now airing on HBO. I'd kill to have written this paragraph:

Haynes' production does not disappoint. It is faithful not only to Cain's dialogue and to the original film version of the novel but most importantly to the great myths presented therein: that everything comes with a terrible price, especially good sex; that children are a horror because they reflect a part of who you really are; that the American dream is inextricably tied up with real estate and scoundrels and good pie.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite as enamored of the melodrama. It opens during a violent argument between a middle-class married couple:

BERT: Maybe I'm sleepin' with her, and maybe I ain't! You really wanna push this, babe? You wanna?

MILDRED: Yeah, I wanna! You been sleepin' with sluts every night of the week, and I'm sick of it! I ain't takin' any more, ya hear? Get outta here, ya lousy bum! GET OUT!

BERT exits. Twelve-year-old VEDA enters.

VEDA: Tra la la and fiddle dee dee, has there been some tumult within?

MILDRED: Veda, it . . . it's your papa. He's left. He's left us and he ain't never comin' back.

VEDA (hyperventilating): My swan, mother: hie me to the fainting chair. The vapors return forthwith!

Mildred is, of course, sympathetic. She tries to shield her daughter from their inevitable plunge into poverty, fearing the sting of her shame. We viewers, on the other hand, suspect that something else is up.

When the neighborhood kids come over to play with her younger sister, they're a ragtag gang in dirty sweatshirts and torn jeans. When there's a knock at the door for little Veda, though, it's a tiny Marlon Brando hollering her name.

I realize most kids are ashamed of their parents, but it's totally unwarranted here. I don't see Bert building model airplanes, and Mildred doesn't wash out used Ziploc bags. No, at some point in her short life Veda was left alone with A Ballad of Reading Gaol and two ounces of opium. I'm not saying kids have to be outside playing stickball all day long, but clearly something is wrong when they spend Christmas on the couch comparing their debasement to a three-legged unicorn.

Instead of Mildred trying to shelter her daughter, then, she should be calling an exorcist. That's what I'd do, and I know how loose those dudes can be with their hands. Because what other explanation can there be when Mom and Dad are out of 50s TV and daughter's spouting Tennessee Williams?

Of course, I realize these little melodramas aren't made for logical dudes. Halfway through Camille, nobody appreciates it if you suggest she might appreciate the dry heat of Arizona. We rest easy when Tara burns down knowing Scarlett must have put the insurance papers in her safe deposit box. Here I think there's a similar solution.

So adios, Mildred: I'm abandoning your sad slide into victimhood in favor of my own empowered ending:

VEDA stands at the door holding eight pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage.

VEDA: That's right, mother, I'm ashamed! Ashamed of you, and your sad white uniform. And if that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!

MILDRED slams the door in her face and smiles.

MILDRED: Butcha are, my dear; ya are.