Imitation of Life (1959)

A Great Film For Anyone

By Yahoo! Shopping User  May 10, 2004

Pros: Very touching, well acted movie

Cons: Sometimes the acting is a bit overdone, but this is a 1950's film.

This movie starts off with a woman named Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), a struggling widow and aspiring actress with a young daughter named Susie. Buy chance she meets Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), also a struggling widow and her daughter Sarah Jane.... Lora employs Annie as a ‘housekeeper” which provides Lora enough time to pursue her dreams and this gives Annie and Sarah Jane a more permeant home. . Lora goes out and follows her dreams while Annie, takes care of the home and provides a regular home life for Susie and Sarah Jane. After some time, Lora becomes a star on Broadway. Along the way, she acquires a love interest in a man named Steve (John Gavin), who met Lora earlier in the movie and he was an aspirering artist with dreams of his own. Once Lora has enough money coming in, Annie, Susie, and Sarah Jane all move to a large house in the country. Annie still continues to take care of Susie (Sandra Dee) and Sarah Jane (Susan Koehner) as they grow up into young women. Throughout the movie, you begin to see the different relationships that develop between the two mother and two daughters. Sarah Jane dislikes her mother and constantly tries to act like she is white (due to the fact that she is very light skinned). However, she looks up to Lora because she is a successful white woman, which is what Sarah Jane wants to be. Susie on the other hand, drifts further and further from her mother, because Lora is always away shooting a movie or on tour with a play. She looks up to Annie because Annie was around the house more than Susie’s mother was. This was an excellent film which showed some of the hardships that were encountered by African-American, mothers and daughters, and people who were chasing a dream. This film somewhat critiques existing stereotypes. Earlier in the movie, Steve proposed to Lora. She refused, breaking the stereotype that woman are dependent on men. The film also represents intersections of race, social & economic class, and gender. For example, in the household there were two lower class African-American women and two lower-middle class Caucasian women, but they were all viewed as equals by each other, with the exception of Sarah-Jane (she viewed her mother as subservient to Lora). Steve (a Caucasian, middle-class male) was also sometimes a member of the house, and he also saw everyone as equals. Read more Less