This fictional account of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little" Edie Bouvier Beale chronicles the aunt and cousin of Jackie O and their eccentric ways. For cult film fans, it serves as a fascinating prequel to the famed documentary of the same name. For all other viewers, it's a unique look at the black sheep of a famous rich family and as they went from lavish socialites to living in a dilapidated mansion where raccoons lived off piles of trash.
"Little" Edie (Drew Barrymore, E.T.) is a strange bird, who fancies herself a singer and a dancer. Her mother Edith (Jessica Lange, BLUE SKY), a singer herself, advises her daughter to marry a man who provides her with a long leash so that she can truly be free. Edith lives the high life with her music man lover George "Gould" Strong (Malcolm Gets, TV's CAROLINE IN THE CITY), while her husband Phelan (Ken Howard, MICHAEL CLAYTON) pays the bills. But when he gets fed up with her, he cuts her allowance and moves out. Edie isn't interested in marriage and moves to NYC to be on Broadway and starts an affair with the married Secretary of the Interior Julius Krug (Daniel Baldwin, JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES).
Director Michael Sucsy co-wrote the teleplay with Patricia Rozema and attempts to show how the mother and daughter become mutually dependent on each other. Edith comes off as a willful and selfish woman who can't be alone. "Little" Edie is more of an enigma. As a young woman, she seemed a free spirit, but her first set back seemed to ruin her self-confidence completely. Even in her 50s, she dreams of making it big in New York and dreads staying one more winter at Grey Gardens, the once beautiful East Hampton estate. She is bitter about how her life has turned out one minute and completely hopefully about her upcoming fame in the future. A meeting with her cousin Jackie Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn, TV's BIG LOVE) shows just how bitter she has become.
Edith and Edie are completely helpless to take care of themselves. The mess that Grey Gardens would became started before "Little" Edie was forced back from New York. Their lives are like a strange sociological experiment were the privileged are left in the woods to fend for themselves. It's an ugly sight. No wonder Albert and David Maysles (Arye Gross, MINORITY REPORT, and Justin Louis, SAW IV) found them fascinating subjects. And Edith and Edie just loved the idea of being the stars of a film. But it's interesting how their reactions to the film differ when it's done.
Much of the film's success is due to the great central performances. Barrymore has never been this good before. She seems to fall into the peculiar behavior of the flamboyant "Little" Edie with great ease. She doesn't play it over-the-top like she's tended to do in other roles. She creates a woman who simply walks through life at a different pace. As her mother says, she doesn't see herself like others do.
As for her mother, Lange is vanity free, especially as the aged Edith. The make-up work in uncanny. She brings subtly to the younger Edith, who lives in a party world that has nothing to do with the world around her. Grey Gardens represents that mindset, which allows her to continue to willfully live there well after the point where she can afford it. The film seems to respect her determination, while condemning her willfulness and selfishness at the same time. But you don't see any of this self-reflection in Lange's performance, which takes dedication. She was withered inside long before she was withered on the outside. And yet she clearly loves her daughter.
Like the documentary, the film captures the strange co-dependency that this mother and daughter formed. Driven by Emmy worthy performances, the complex relationship becomes strangely fascinating as they go from glamour to squalor. Edith needed companionship. "Little" Edie needed an excuse for failed dreams.
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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
