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Movies / On DVD / Imitation of Life
Imitation of Life

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Imitation of Life (1959)

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Reviews Counted:12

Fresh:10

Rotten:2

Average Rating:7.3/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: In Douglas Sirk's emotionally and visually extravagant final film IMITATION OF LIFE, a life's work of subverted melodrama and razor-sharp social commentary are brought to a resounding and baroque... In Douglas Sirk's emotionally and visually extravagant final film IMITATION OF LIFE, a life's work of subverted melodrama and razor-sharp social commentary are brought to a resounding and baroque climax. In a role that closely resembles and perhaps parodies her own life, Lana Turner plays Lora Meredith, an aspiring actress and single mother who meets Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a black and similarly single and struggling mother. When they move in together, Annie assumes the role of domestic servant and the two women struggle together to raise their two daughters. Annie's daughter, Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner), favors her father whose skin tone resembles her own extremely light skin, and she slowly comes to resent her mother's black identity. Transcending the feminist labeling that IMITATION OF LIFE risked, the film freely mixes Meredith's rags to riches (with a hefty moral price tag) tale with Annie's scarring struggles to teach her daughter to accept her identity. As Meredith climbs higher and higher in her glamorous rise to stage and screen stardom, she ignores her vulnerable daughter Susie (Sandra Dee) and creates a devastating contrast for the racial and social tragedy that transpires in her own household. With a deft mixture of icy detachment and morose sentimentality rendered through a transcendent art direction, Sirk leads the film onto an inimitable crescendo of highly adorned emotion and tragedy. [More]

Starring: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Susan Kohner

Starring: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Susan Kohner, Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Alda

Director: Douglas Sirk

Director: Douglas Sirk
Screenwriter: Eleanore Griffin, Allan Scott
Story: Fannie Hurst
Producer: Ross Hunter
Composer: Frank Skinner, Joseph Gershenson

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jan 7, 2003

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Imitation of Life

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1 - 18 (sorted by date)
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What [the characters] need most from their maker is something he couldn't have given them at the time: the 1960s.

Full Review Source: City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul | comment Comment
08/20/09
Rob Nelson
Rob Nelson
City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
03/19/09
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | comment Comment
08/14/07
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
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N/R

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Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
03/25/06
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

Glossy soaper ahead of its racially themed time.

comment Comment
09/25/05
Steve Crum
Steve Crum
Video-Reviewmaster.com

No review available.

comment Comment
08/04/05
Jake Euker
Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)

Douglas Sirk's last Hollywood film is the jewel in his crown, a visually audacious, powerfully acted melodrama, with Lana Turner and Juanita Moore in top form, that was misunderstood and dismissed at the time as just a weepie or soap opera.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
06/12/05
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

No review available.

comment Comment
08/22/03
Carol Cling
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Sirk immediately and deliberately acknowledges the film’s metaphoric, almost pathological obsession with surfaces.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
07/03/03
Ed Gonzalez
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
05/24/03
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

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Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
03/10/03
Marjorie Baumgarten
Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle

No review available.

comment Comment
08/29/02
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
08/27/02
Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com

No review available.

comment Comment
08/01/02
Nell Minow
Nell Minow
Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

Trashy remake of John M. Stahl's 1934 classic

comment 1 Comment
07/30/02
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Intelligent and compelling.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
02/07/02
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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