While at the beach with her daughter, an aspiring actress (Lana Turner) meets another single mother (Juanita Moore), an African-American raising a fair skinned daughter, and is convinced to take her on as a maid. As her career begins to take off, she finds herself spending less time with her daughter (played as a teen by Sandra Dee), who is being raised by the maid who is having her own difficulties with her own ashamed, ungrateful child (Susan Kohner). Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life" is a surprisingly pointed and exceedingly well done melodrama shot in effulgent Technicolor and featuring some fine performances, especially from Moore as the beset, angelic maid.
