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"  After taking television drama to an unprece\u00ADdented level of boldness and sophistication with such series as The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, and Big Love, HBO has seen other networks steal its thunder, most notably with Mad Men\u2014a show HBO execs turned down. This month, the \u00ADacclaimed indie director Todd Haynes comes to the rescue with a fascinating five-part miniseries version of Mildred Pierce, with Kate Winslet in the title role of an ambitious young Depression-era housewife turned successful businesswoman. Evan Rachel Wood plays her gifted, spoiled-\u00ADrotten daughter, and Guy Pearce is the upper-class wastrel who seduces them both. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been lucky to work with some of the best women actors around,&amp;quot; Haynes says, &amp;quot;and reading James M. Cain&amp;#039;s novel, I started picturing Kate, who resembles Mildred in her drive and fierce industry.&amp;quot; Winslet, who is in almost every scene, was drawn to the grueling project\u2014the equivalent of shooting two and a half movies in 16 weeks\u2014by what she calls Haynes&amp;#039; creative unpredictability. &amp;quot;He has the capacity to change it up all the time and keep surprising audiences and taking risks,&amp;quot; she says. Devotees of the original 1945 Joan Crawford noir will wonder where the murder is. &amp;quot;Cain hated that addition,&amp;quot; Haynes says, noting that the naturalism of the miniseries is the \u00ADopposite of the noir film as well as of his previous Oscar-nominated period piece, the gorgeously stylized 2002 suburban drama Far From Heaven.  Haynes isn&amp;#039;t just indie, he&amp;#039;s a radically experimental filmmaker whose movies bear no resemblance to each other. But they grab audiences and win lots of prizes, whether he&amp;#039;s tracking a young wife whose surroundings have become so toxic she flees into the desert in the eerily prescient Safe, or using six very different actors\u2014most spectacularly, Cate Blanchett\u2014to channel Bob Dylan in I&amp;#039;m Not There, a biopic as elusive and shape-shifting as the man himself. So what&amp;#039;s next? Haynes doesn&amp;#039;t know\u2014he hasn&amp;#039;t changed it up yet. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a11556/mildred-pierce/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>