All I Desire (1953)

After a number of years, Barbara Stanwyck, at the request of her teenaged daughter and pretending she is more successful than she is, returns to the family she abandoned for the stage. Her arrival causes upheaval in her family who has continued their lives without her. Her husband has found a new love interest, her oldest daughter wants nothing to do with her, her other daughter wants to join her on the stage, and her son barely remembers her. The power of Stanwyck’s performance outshines the rest of the cast in what is otherwise a rather unmemorable film. What completely ruins the film for me is that every single character is left with an unsatisfying ending at odds with the desires they have expressed throughout the film.