Synopsis
Imitation of Life (1959) is a Douglas Sirk melodrama you can watch online on iFILM. New York, early 1940s: a white widow named Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) wants Broadway and nothing less. A chance street meeting with Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a Black single mother with nowhere to go, leads to an unlikely arrangement — Annie runs the household while Lora chases the spotlight.
The years stack up fast. Lora gets her name in lights, men, applause. But the sharper story plays out elsewhere: Annie's daughter Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) starts passing for white, cutting her mother out of her life with a cold deliberateness that the film never lets you look away from. Meanwhile Lora's own daughter (Sandra Dee) falls for the same man her mother does, which goes about as well as you'd expect.
Sirk wrapped the whole thing in lush Technicolor and expensive-looking production design — then used that prettiness to expose what the film is actually about: the performances people give to survive a world built around race and class. Juanita Moore landed an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and the film has only grown in critical standing since. Watch Imitation of Life (1959) online on iFILM.
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