A piercing portrayal of relationships

San Antonio native Joan Crawford won an Oscar for the movie “Mildred Pierce.” Britain's Kate Winslet seems destined to win an Emmy for the TV remake. The latter's performance as Depression-era divorcée Mildred — a highly capable career woman brought down by her obsessive love for her manipulative daughter — is so intimate, you'll find yourself right there with her during both the highs and disturbing lows of her life.

A warning to those who loved the Crawford movie, however: The five-part “Mildred Pierce” on HBO, which kicks off with a two-part block at 8 and continues on subsequent Sundays through April 10, is strikingly different from its 1945 predecessor. It's earthier and much more faithful to the James M. Cain novel's psychological theme of tug-of-war between a mother and daughter. The original movie explored this aspect, but added a thriller element, complete with a murder involving the main characters.

Director Todd Haynes (“Far From Heaven”), who co-wrote this adaptation, said he loved the old film, calling it “a beautifully stylized piece of Hollywood operatic noir film making.” However, he was even more taken by the “modern, contemporary and approachable” book.

“I was so startled and surprised by reading the James M. Cain novel,” Haynes told TV critics at a recent HBO press session, featuring the director and three of the mini's stars, “at how incredibly frank (he was) and how much he was really purposefully trying to not do a film noir as he'd come to be known for in ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice' and ‘Double Indemnity,' but really a realistic portrait of a mother-daughter relationship.”

Right away, we're introduced to turmoil. We see Mildred hard at work in her Glendale, Calif., home baking cakes and pies for neighbors to bring in extra money to make up for her out-of-work husband's lack of income. It doesn't take long for Mildred to toss him out. She then struggles to make a living for her family by, first, waiting tables, and later, opening her own restaurant.

More important than the plot, however, are Mildred's relationships. First and foremost is her unreasonable devotion to her snob of a daughter, Veda, who makes her displeasure with her middle class circumstances known at every turn. The movie also explores Mildred's complex relationships with men, particularly Monty (Guy Pearce), a rakishly handsome fellow with an upper-crust background who nonetheless ends up living off Mildred.

In keeping with the book's candor, the miniseries delivers frank depictions of Mildred's sexuality. The open sensuality of her encounters — complete with nudity — is bound to surprise fans of the more modest original movie.

Winslet praised Cain's honesty, describing his characters as “very real people experiencing very real emotions.” The Oscar-winning actress was attracted to the project for many reasons, but primary was “this unbelievably intense relationship between Mildred and Veda,” she said. “Every mother-daughter relationship is complex and complicated for its own different set of reasons, but this one, it was just something else because Mildred was in a position constantly where she didn't know whether to love her or kill her.”

Winslet conveys these complexities beautifully, as do the actresses who depict the relationship's other half. Veda is portrayed by two: Morgan Turner plays her from age 11 into her teens, imbuing her with a fierceness that makes you cringe.

Evan Rachel Wood gives the grown-up Veda an even scarier quality — an icy disregard for others that's compared in the miniseries to a snake's. “That character almost killed me,” Wood said. “She's just warped at such an early age.”

She said she didn't want to play Veda “as just this bratty daughter that, you know, everyone hates,” but instead wanted to show how remarkably talented she is and why she obsesses over escaping the working-class world of her mother. She succeeds. “Mildred Pierce” is indeed an actress' dream, delivering vivid female characters, full of ambition and pain, rarely found on television.