Grey Gardens

I love HBO.  They are the last bastion of TV movies worth watching.  In a world where broadcast networks can’t manage anything but crap reality shows churned out by the dozen, HBO continues to make quality series and movies and attract top actors for their endeavors.  The award winning Grey Gardens cements my affection for the network. 

Grey Gardens is structured as an extension of an early 1970s documentary about Edith and Edith Beale, mother and daughter and aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy.  At the time of the filming of the original documentary, the two Edies were living in squalor in a once tony mansion in the East Hamptons.  Their eccentric lives were documented by David and Al Maysles and the country was fascinated by this look into a skeleton in the Kennedy closet.  In the newer version of the Edie(s) Beale story, director Michael Sucsy uses the original documentary as a launching pad, adding dramatizations of events hinted at in the original and remaking some scenes in their entirety.  The result is an incredible look at the early lives and later struggles of the Beale women.

We meet the women first as older adults, living in their dilapidated mansion and discussing their lives with the documentarians.  The elder Edie (Jessica Lange) appears mainly bedridden and the younger (Drew Barrymore) more vital and more delusional.  They tell little bits of their story as we flash back to their younger selves living lives of leisure in the midst of the Depression.  It becomes clear quickly that all is not perfect for these Kennedy cousins as passive aggression, manipulation and mental illness derail their once extravagant lives.

Grey Gardens is fascinating in so many ways.  It’s a look at the wealthy during the Depression, a peek into the outer fringes of the Kennedy clan and an intricate weaving of the tale of two eccentric women and their complicated relationship.  That relationship is the true heart of Grey Gardens.  Seeing how and why the Edies end up in squalor is a powerful reminder that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The film would fail were it not for the stellar performances of Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.  In the DVD extras (very much worth watching) we get to see snippets of the original documentary and images of the real Beale women.  Barrymore and Lange channel these women in ways that are nearly uncanny.  Barrymore in particular manages to capture the strange cadence of young Edie’s speech and her grand delusions without turning the woman into a caricature.  We genuinely grow to like these strange women.  The set design for both the 1930s house and the later, dilapidated mansion are extraordinary, the stark contrast between the two never failing to resonate.   Kudos to HBO and Sucsy for taking the time and care to present the Beales as real people rather than simple Kennedy oddities.  Definitely recommended.