I agree with many of the other commentaries on this page that this is a very hard film to rate. If you are curious who the most freakish character ever put on film is, (Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford puts Hannibal Lecter to shame without even killing one person or eating human flesh) you will certainly find this movie morbidly fascinating.<br /><br />I haven't read the book upon which this horrible movie is supposedly based, but I have seen the real Christina Crawford on a documentary depicting Joan Crawfords career, and I can imagine her being every bit as vindictive as this movie makes her out to be. It's not all her fault of course, as it must have been a living hell to be Crawford's daughter if a tenth of what's happening in the movie is true. The problem is every character in it are unsympathetic in one way or another. So what does it have on it's mind? Does it wanna trash Crawford and make Christina out to be the hero? If so, it does a poor job. See the closing scene and you will know what I'm talking about. Is it simply that movie stars are unfit parents because they are too wrapped up in themselves? It is impossible to find a culprit based on what is depicted here.<br /><br />There are too many awful moments to describe here but I do think that Faye Dunaway was very brave to take on this part and make it such a caricature. She must have known that there was no other way to play it since this was doomed to be a turkey.<br /><br />So if you are interested in seeing this do so without expecting to get any inside information about the life of these people or if you are interested in seeing behind the scenes backstabbing there is the soap opera scene (it is unintentionally hilarious but the one thing that is actually close to the truth). We never really learn anything about the career of Joan Crawford as the subject matter is handled so flimsy. Most of the facts are either left out or tampered with.<br /><br />My vote is that this movie is awful. It is much too depressing to work as camp and much too unintelligent as to work as art.