Feud: Bette Vs. Joan Review

Feud: Bette Vs. Joan Review

The television series, Feud: Bette Vs. Joan was aired by FX and consists of eight episodes. The series stars Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The series focuses on the real-life animosity between two of Hollywood’s most legendary and beloved classic starlets, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, particularly as they worked together as co-stars for the film, “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?”

When Joan Crawford is struggling to find work in the movie industry, she pitches the idea to do a film adaptation of the horror novel, “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?” by Henry Farrell. When the film is finally accepted by a studio, Joan approaches Bette Davis to co-star in the film with her in the hopes of making the film Oscar worthy, earning Bette’s respect and securing future acting offers for both of them. At first, Bette and Joan seem to get along until the media and head of the studio, Jack L. Warner get involved to stir up a rivalry between the two actresses all while Bette and Joan are dealing with their own personal issues at home that begin to affect them while on set. As the film debuts in theaters, it becomes a big success which causes Joan to worry that Bette will be nominated for an Oscar award over her. Joan’s fears come to fruition as Bette is nominated for Best Actress.

Joan immediately begins to work with Hedda Hopper to persuade the voters to choose other nominees over Bette. Additionally, Joan convinces fellow nominees in the Best Actress category, Geraldine Page and Anne Bancroft to allow her to accept the award on their behalf at the ceremony should they be chosen to win the award. Joan then offers to be a presenter at the ceremony and ultimately ends up accepting the award for Anne Bancroft who wins the award for her role in the film, “The Miracle Worker”.  After the Oscars, Joan eventually signs on for a sequel with Bette, entitled “Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte”. Joan, however, begins to feel that Bette is seeking revenge on her as Bette, now having creative control over the film, keeps changing Joan’s lines and at one point, leaves her and her housekeeper, Mamacita stranded on set.

In return, Joan fakes an illness to try and get the film stalled to the point where the production company cancels the film. Her actions are to no avail as Joan ends up fired and sued by the studio along with her role being replaced by fellow Hollywood starlet and close friend of Bette’s, Olivia De Havilland.  Deeply upset by the news, Joan throws a potted plant at the window, almost hitting Mamacita, who immediately quits her job as Joan’s housekeeper. As Bette’s career continues to take off, Joan ultimately retires from acting, due to being given bad film offers.

Following her retirement, Joan gets a puppy and reconciles with Mamacita.  Joan’s health eventually begins to deteriorate, even having a hallucination that she and Bette have become friends. Joan ends up passing away a week later and when her tribute appears during the “In Memoriam” segment at the Oscars, Bette expresses sadness and refuses to comment about Joan in an interview for a documentary about her, leaving one of the documentary crew members wondering what really happened between Bette and Joan during the first day they filmed “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

While the setting of Joan’s house and the costumes in this series are absolutely gorgeous and while the casting was superb, the thing that really made this series likable was how you could relate to many of the characters such as Pauline who wants to break gender barriers and become a film director, even to the point where she writes a script specifically for Joan Crawford, who unfortunately snubs it due to Pauline’s gender. Pauline’s ambition is an admirable trait as we all have our own aspirations we want to achieve in life. Mamacita is another character people can relate to as she has a fondness for learning after immigrating to America and is a lot more intelligent than she lets on. Joan and Bette, in their own ways are relatable due to seeing how they dealt with family problems including parenting, which we see with Bette as she struggles to get along with her daughter B.D. and with Joan, who upon her adopted children being all grown up feels lonely and desires another child, to which she is denied by an adoption agency due to her age. Like many other Hollywood stars, we also see through Bette and Joan that while they live glamorous lives (particularly Joan), fame, fortune and beauty are not as simple as they make it seem in front of the cameras and that even with their riches, talents, beauty and fame, they long for things much more meaningful in their lives and because of this, viewers can sympathize with them.