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Pretty Good

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story of Grey Gardens, a huge estate in Southhampton, Long Island was home to eccentrics Big Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edith. They live there with their cats and raccoons as well. Their home is in disarray after years of neglect. The documentary about Big Edie and Little Edie is a rare look into humanity. The mother and daughter are quite unique, talented and individualistic in their lives. When the film director agreed to make a movie about them, they couldn't have imagined the outpouring and interest in the Beales. They are related to former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. They were both debutantes and figures in New York high society. This rare look at their lives offers a glimpse into their world. We may not understand their decisions and choices but we respect them for their candidness and honesty throughout.

... such as what happened to the Bouvier/Beale money that bought the 28 room mansion that mother and daughter live in and is in disrepair? I know that Big Edie was divorced in 1931, and it sounded like "little Edie" had the advantages of an expensive education through college, which would have been right before WWII. What changed? There is no narration here, nor do the documentary makers ask questions. They just let the cameras roll and record whatever happens. Big Edie is in her late 70s yet retains a kind of beauty. However, she talks over little Edie whenever they are in the same room, making it difficult to understand either woman.What is clear visually is that they are both living in squalor. A cat defecates behind a very old portrait of Big Edie and both Edies laugh about being glad somebody gets to do what they want? Nobody tries to clean it up. Big Edie spends her time on a filthy mattress with stuff she might need stacked on top, yet seems to have no trouble with mobility. They make food for the cameramen including pate on crackers that looks like cat food on crackers. I would want a tetanus shot first.Little Edie has a mountain of regret. She talks about how she wanted to be a dancer, how somebody wanted to marry her but her mother drove him away, and how she has been taking care of her mother due to her health on and off since the second world war. She mentions how much she hates the country and misses the noise of the city. Little Edie is remarkably well preserved. When this film was made she was 56 but she could pass for forty. She color coordinates all of her wardrobes including her scarves and headdresses that hide her alopecia, yet she won't mop the floor. Shades of faded feelings of being aristocracy perhaps? Another question I had that went unanswered was where were big Edie's sons? Both lived into the 1990's, yet they are nowhere to be found. Maybe they had the sense to get out of Dodge.Why are these recluses the subject of a documentary in the first place? Because big and little Edie are Jackie Kennedy Onnasis' aunt and cousin, respectively, and because Suffolk County was trying to evict them based on the condition of the house and grounds - there was no running water at one point - until Jackie supplied the funds to get the estate up to snuff.Don't look for lots of answers here, because there are really none. It is just a fascinating portrait of two recluses who have slipped into their own form of normality although it looks horrifying to outsiders.

I had a very complicated reaction to "Grey Gardens," the Maysles brothers' cult classic 1975 documentary. I felt by turns creeped out by Edith and Edie, the mother and daughter at the film's center, and very sorry for them. They rot away in a derelict and disgustingly dirty mansion, swarmed by cats and other wild animals, bickering and reminiscing about the lives each of them left behind, Edith's as a singer and Edie's as a model and dancer. There shouldn't be anything wrong with not realizing your ambitions when those ambitions lie in artistic fields that only a very select few succeed in, yet the fact that these two didn't replace their disappointments with anything else turns them into grand guignol caricatures. Edie especially is like Norma Desmond if Norma had never been successful in the first place. I couldn't decide whether she was just deeply eccentric or actually suffering from a mental disorder. There's a scene where some people they know come over for Edith's birthday party, and the young female guest looks the entire time like she can't wait to get out of the house and away from the weirdness. That's exactly how I felt watching the film. Even though they volunteered to have their lives filmed, and despite the fact that Edie at least thrives on the attention, I couldn't help but feel a little shamed being a voyeur. The film is like rummaging through someone else's dirty underwear.Grade: A

Grey Gardens (1975) *** (out of 4) Bizarre "documentary" about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie - cousin and niece of Jacqueline Onassis - living in a dump of a mansion where we get to see their day-to-day lives. I'm really not sure if bizarre really covers everything in this film and I'm really not sure that this should or could be called a documentary. The content has come under attack by many critics. I think most agree that it's a very entertaining movie but at the same time it makes you feel more like a voyeur looking in on a couple obviously sick people. I understand the directors getting attacked for filming these two as it seems clear that there's really no point to it other than to show what wacky behaviors they have and to see how someone with so much money and connections to greatness can be living like bums off the street. The film opens up with newspaper clips of the two about to be kicked out of their mansion because of how dirty it is and then we see that Onassis had to place cleaned so that the could stay. From here we see the mother and daughter talk about their lives, scream and shout and do other things including feed the raccoons that are living in their attack. We also see their countless cats that are constantly running around. It's rather funny watching this film today because of all the connections it has to reality TV and shows like Springer where people just show all their troubles, bad behaviors and other issues that really should be kept private. We see the two women go off on wild subjects ranging from who they should have married to whether or not they've made mistakes in their lives and a strange bit where the daughter talks about a local repairman wanting her sexually. There's really no "direction" to the film or story trying to be told. It really doesn't seem as if the directors are wanting us to get to know these people or understand them. It seems like the main goal is just to show these two rather eccentric people go off on rants, wild off-topic discussions and other bits of weirdness. It's not a masterpiece and one could question showing these two but there's no doubt that it's impossible to turn away.