Faye Dunaway herself up to her estranged father and a lover. I understood that dilemma well, the conflict between ambition and love, the fear of trusting someone else with your love." The film was a modest success but Dunaway received good notices for her performance. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert noted how she had never topped the work she did in "Bonnie and Clyde", and said that her career had been "rather absentminded" ever since. He praised her performance in "Oklahoma Crude", saying that she played the role with "a great deal of style", while adding, "Perhaps she has
Faye Dunaway Pauline Kael raved about Dunaway's performance, stating that she had reached new heights as an actress and surmised that it would be difficult for Dunaway to top her performance as Crawford. Vincent Canby also praised Dunaway, writing that ""Mommie Dearest" doesn't work very well, but the ferocious intensity of Faye Dunaway's impersonation does, as does the film's point of view, which succeeds in making Joan Crawford into a woman far more complicated, more self-aware and more profoundly disturbed than the mother remembered in Christina Crawford's book." Director Sidney Lumet stated that it was "a brilliant, an extraordinary performance. The courage