The Fourth Annual Bette Davis Blogathon – Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter (1979)

This is the final of three posts dedicated to The Fourth Annual Bette Davis Blogathon being held over at In The Good Old Days of Hollywood.

Tnx Crystal for letting me take part!

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“You’re not welcome, but you’ll do what suits you. You ALWAYS did what suited you! ” – Lucy Mason

Number of Times Seen – 1 (7 Apr 2019)

Brief Synopsis – A woman returns to her childhood home after 20 years in order to rekindle her relationship with her estranged mother.

My Take on it – This is a film that I came across by accident while trying to find Bette davis films to watch and review for this blogathon.

I had never even heard about it beforehand and went in completely blind to it all.

This is a great film since it says so much about the kind of connection that parents and children could have even if they are estranged for so many years due to issues dealing with lots of anger and pain.

Bette Davis and Gena Rowlands are both amazing here and they play these characters so well since we get to see the ebbs and tides of their relationship even when they attempt to rebuild things.

They gain new trusts with one another but at the same time, there are numerous setbacks that affect things in a way that they digress as they learn new information about the past and present.

The dialogue is written extremely well and it helps make the story and characters so believable and plausible throughout.

Davis deservingly won an Emmy for her performance here since she is able to show the vast emotional range that she can carry even in her Golden Years of acting.

Bottom Line – Great film that says so much about the kind of connection that there can be between a parent and a child even after many years of anger and pain.  Davis and Rowlands are both superb here which allows us to see their relationship constantly be rebuilt but still suffers setbacks along the way as new information is discovered. The dialogue is great and allows us to really believe the characters in everything they say and do. Davis deservingly won an Emmy for her performance here because we get to see the emotional range that she is able to carry even after so many years. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Bette Davis won an Emmy in the Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Special for her performance. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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