I am not going to lie: I was a little nervous going into this movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed the two other Sirk pictures I had seen (Written On The Wind and All That Heaven Allows) but my love stemmed in no small part to the bitterness and comedic value in those two movies, elements I knew would be significantly downplayed here.
However, Sirk knocked it out of the park again. And I think I may have figured out what it is I love so much about his movies: he gets people into the seats with a story he knows they want to hear, but once he gets them there he gives them angles to the story they never expect. In Written On The Wind you come in for the melodrama of a torn family and stay for the acerbic distruction of the American dream. In All That Heaven allows you come in for a love story but instead of judging the main characters you come to despise everyone else. Imitation Of Life was the same - he brings people in with the story of a struggling actress, but keeps you in the seats with a frank and heartbreaking look at racial identification.
By the end not only was my heart hurting by watching Annie's love for her daughter, I had come to completely disrespect Lora. She was so selfish, and not just in the way she thought of her daughter. She had come to put all of her troubles above Annie's, even though they were supposed to be friends. When Annie says she has been a terrible mother, Lora flips it around as if what happened to Sarah Jane couldn't have been helped. It actually made me angry.
For anybody who has seen this - do yourself a favor and check out more Sirk films.
For those of you who haven't seen it - yes, it really is that good. I have yet to find a single director that can ACTUALLY pull off melodrama half as well as Sirk can.
A+