Every child has a legitimate need to be noticed, understood, taken seriously, and respected. But some parents through the exercise of their power abuse their children physically and damage them emotionally. Mommie Dearest is based on Christina Crawford's best-selling account of the love-hate relationship between Joan Crawford, the 1930s screen star, and her adopted daughter. The film exposes a woman who obviously wanted to be a loving mother but turned into a wicked witch.

Faye Dunaway gives an intense performance as Joan Crawford, the MGM Studios actress who took out her personal feelings of frustration, fear and helplessness on her daughter (played as child by Mara Hobel and as a teenager and adult by Diana Scarwid). Christina must remain at her mother's beck and call to impress the fans; over the years she is subjected to a pattern of humiliation and punishment, which culminates in her almost being strangled to death for contradicting her mother in front of a reporter. Despite the screenplay writers' attempt to be sympathetic to Joan Crawford — or at least to help the audience understand her — there can be no justification for such callous treatment of children.

Mommie Dearest is a very scary film, especially near the end when Christina seems unable to release the pent-up hate she feels toward her mother. Following Joan's death, she learns that she and her brother Christopher have been cut out of an estate estimated at about $2 million. We realize that her book and this film have, finally, provided Christina with the means to work through the past and come to terms with her anger. Many adults are not as fortunate; they remain prisoners of their unhappy childhoods throughout their lives.