Grey Gardens (2009)

Review:

In “The Lion King” (1994) Zazu assures Mufasa that every family has an odd duck like Mufasa’s brother Scar. Zazu says “There’s one in every family sire. Two in mine actually. And they always manage to ruin special occasions.” Oh, how Zazu is right. My family has an odd duck. So does yours. And so did Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. And like Zazu, she had two.

Edith “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale were the black sheep of the Bouvier family. Reclusive, hoarding, and unrelentingly odd, the two women became the subject of the lauded documentary “Grey Gardens” (1975). But many people felt the documentary did not explain these two women enough. They were from a well-to-do family. They were related to the first lady. They once had everything. How did they end up living in such squalor? And how did they become so damn strange?

“Grey Gardens” (2009) is an attempt to explain this odd mother-daughter relationship. Directed by Michael Sucsy, the film has two parallel plotlines. One story chronicles the development of the original documentary; how Albert Maysles (Arye Gross) and David Maysles (Justin Louis) came to the Beale’s dilapidated estate and asked if they could film how they lived. Little Edie (Drew Barrymore) agrees to let the young men film she and her mother, inspired by the inept belief this will launch her movie career.

The other story line chronicles the class descent of Little and Big Edie. Both women in their heyday were natural hostesses - a little peculiar, but generally good fun. In the 1940s they lived an extravagant lifestyle of parties and luxury at Grey Gardens, supported wholly by Big Edie’s lawyer husband Phelan Beale (Ken Howard). When Beale divorces Edie for her expensive and promiscuous lifestyle it is the beginning of the end for the mother and daughter. Big Edie, in a strange attempt to maintain her class status stays on at Grey Gardens, even though the small allowance she receives from Beale can hardly maintain the household.

Little Edie meanwhile moves to New York City where she attempts to jumpstart a career in show business. She engages in an affair with a married man and when her father finds out, Edie finds herself exiled to Grey Gardens with her mother. It should also be noted Edie has alopecia. Soon after she moves back to Grey Gardens her hair begins to fall out. Perhaps afraid to return to society with a bald head or afflicted with laziness or the loss of her status and dreams, Little Edie decides to stay on with her mother indefinitely at Grey Gardens.

And in time, it seems the two of them were all but forgotten by the rest of their family. Extreme isolation and utter disregard for housekeeping finally transformed Big and Little Edie into paragons of eccentrics.

Drew Barrymore is the undoubted star of the film. Her depiction of Little Edie embodies the real life Edie so well, at times it’s hard to recognize its really just Drew Barrymore. Jessica Lange also does a stellar job as usual, portraying Big Edie in middle and old age.

“Grey Gardens” has the intention of dispelling the mystery of the Beales and how they came to be as they are depicted in the documentary. In that regard, I think the film fails – as it must – because there’s no rational explanation for why these women ended up this way. How does anyone let their house get to a point where they willingly cohabitate with raccoons? I don’t know, but it happens. We will never know exactly why Little Edie stayed on with her mother for so long and how they lived that way. The Beale’s are bound to remain a mystery, as all eccentrics must.

Rating:

On a scale of one to “Casablanca” this film is a little less than “Sling Blade” (1986).

Rationalization:

I like that some people are beyond explanation. They seem to exist to point out that you are in no way as extreme as you thought. Sometimes that’s reassuring, other times its discouraging. I haven’t seen the documentary “Grey Gardens” but now I intend to. I imagine the documentary is more potent than this film because it’s the evidence that these were real people who actually lived in such a way. As it stands though, this is a somewhat illuminating film with great performances. Bravo Drew Barrymore. You’ve finally shaken off “E.T.”