Grey Gardens (2009)

Captivating movie !

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In 1973, brothers Albert Maysles (Arye Gross) and David Maysles (Louis Ferreira) arrive in East Hampton, NY to do a documentary about mother and daughter Edith 'Big Edie' Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) and Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale (Drew Barrymore) living in the rundown Grey Gardens estate. Little Edie's famous cousin Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn) used to visit during the summer. In flashbacks starting in 1936, Little Edie simply wants to be a famous dancer. Big Edie wants her to find a husband with a long leash. Her father Phelan Beale (Ken Howard) wants someone to take care of her. Instead, she's in New York sleeping with married Julius 'Cap' Krug (Daniel Baldwin). Phelan leaves Big Edie. Little Edie starts losing her hair and gets pulled back home by Big Edie. When Phelan dies, Big Edie refuses to sell Grey Gardens with only a small trust that can't maintain the estate.The acting is excellent. Lange is never wrong and Barrymore does a nice job in her older role. The women's story in their earlier days is not quite dramatic enough. It is their older selves where their compelling characters become truly dramatic. The years of disappointments and their old wounds make them great characters. Their scenes with Jackie is terrific. Their relationship is built on years of unfulfilled wishes and faded glory.

I'd seen the original documentary when it opened, and was strangely drawn to the surreal, tragic lives of those women. This production - astonishingly - honors everything that was real and touching in that relationship. I cannot believe that HBO wouldn't in some way make caricatures out of the Beales, but they do not. This is a lovely, sad, touching film. If there's a discordant note, it's the necessary evil of Tripplehorn's Jackie reaction when she arrives to save the day. It's a thankless role and difficult scene, but even this could've been much worse. That aside - Lange is brilliant and intensely real, and Barrymore...well, I've never been a fan. Until now. This is a performance crafted out of sheer integrity and skill. As richly as HBO deserves derision for its garbage, this warrants an ovation.

This is a well made well cast and well acted biopic on the lives of 2 eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy. Excellent acting - a touching story. Heartbreaking and terrifying. The squalor of the house was horrifying as only a true story can be. The tragedy of their lives and eccentricity shows how wrong choices can affect your life.The acting by Drew is her best. She really deserved her Golden Globe. She looked and acted beautiful when young and realistically eccentric when older. Jessica Lange was excellent too. Both were captivating.A must see.

An American tragedy if there ever was one: A story of two fallen women, mother and daughter. This film is best appreciated along with the original documentary of same name, done in 1975. In the 2009 film, Lange and Barrymore are both outstanding. Drew deserved her Golden Globe with her best performance. She captures the look and emotional immaturity of "Little Edie." The one thing she didn't capture was the flashes of Edie's brilliant mind. As young women, both mother and daughter were stunning beauties, but they fancied themselves as singers and dancers, which neither were. Little Edie, if she had a true talent, would probably have been in poetry, her brother was an excellent writer-only her untreated mental illness held her back. In a nutshell, these two women were used to having servants and having everything done for them, and who had the rug pulled out from under them by Big Edie's separation and their following lack of money. A reversal of fortune. As time passed, Mother Beale became lonely and she was dominating by nature, while her daughter was gentle and sweet, mentally ill, and had no other place to go. They kept each other company for 20 years, and without servants, they simply stopped doing anything. They never took out the garbage or cleaned, and were surrounded by cats and even fed the critters in the attic. They simply entertained each other as if they both were still in high society, reliving their past glories and current resentments. The Beale women were like modern day Magnificent Ambersons or Blanche Dubois's, holding onto their past gentility while being unable to see for themselves what they had become. A Fascinating story showing the fine line between success and failure, and the difference between talent and ambition. These ladies sought their life's fulfillment in places in which they had no talent. Little Edie was brilliant and artistic; she just wasn't an actress or dancer.