Most critics take Imitation of Life for a melodrama that knows exactly what it is doing. The praise clusters on Sirk’s direction: the Technicolor surfaces, the open manipulation, and the way the weepie machinery is turned against the racism and commercialism it appears to serve. Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner, as the mother and the light-skinned daughter who rejects her, draw the warmest notices, and their subplot is repeatedly named the strongest thing in the film. Nearly everyone mentions the funeral.
The spread is narrow at the top and then drops sharply. Seven of eight reviews are positive; the one dissenter is The New York Times, writing on release, which finds a shameless tear-jerker with banal dialogue and overacting. Later critics tend to read that excess as deliberate, and Collider notes the film was dismissed as soap before being recognised for its boldness on race, class and gender. Variety, also at the time, is warmer but measured: a solid remake, with Lana Turner outstanding.