{"id":6428,"date":"2009-12-11T11:44:09","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T19:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6428"},"modified":"2009-12-11T11:54:09","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T19:54:09","slug":"grey-gardens-michael-sucsy-2009-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6428","title":{"rendered":"Grey Gardens (Michael Sucsy, 2009): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"The fascination with the Beales\u00a0of\u00a0Grey Gardens continues,\u00a0thirty-four years later with HBO’s production of\u00a0 Grey Gardens<\/a>\u00a0the movie.\u00a0 The film stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore\u00a0as Big Edith and Little Edie Beale, the eccentric mother-daughter aristocrats of East Hampton.<\/p>\n

Unlike the cinema verite\u00a0documentary, Grey Gardens the film, \u00a0gives \u00a0fans\u00a0a brief glimpse into the past of the Beale family, reminding us of what their glamourous\u00a0life once was, before the inumerable\u00a0cats, raccoons and squalor.<\/p>\n

Out in\u00a0the Hampton’s, where many wealthy East Coast residents call home (or second home) near the sea, \u00a0Grey Gardens\u00a0was the summer\u00a0beach house of the Beale’s, a\u00a0 family who just happened to be related to Jackie Onassis (Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Edie (Drew Barrymore) is a debutante, whose father Phelan Beale (Ken Howard) is eager to get her married off to a wealthy family,\u00a0but instead she is\u00a0ambitious to start a film career and heads off to the Big Apple.\u00a0 Phelan’s wife \u00a0Edith (Jessica Lange), spends too much money and too little time with her husband, and they soon part ways, with Edith informing her husband that she has no intention of ever leaving her beloved summer home Grey Gardens.<\/p>\n

Edith emotionally\u00a0undermines Edie’s career ambitions in the big city, and as Edie’s tryst with a married man turns sour, she returns to her mother and Grey Gardens with her tail tucked between her legs.\u00a0 The two support each other as they live out their lives in seclusion in the Hamptons.\u00a0\u00a0While emotional stress causes\u00a0Edie to lose\u00a0her hair prematurely,\u00a0 Mr. Beale passes away and the two are put on a strict budget, but when the\u00a0funds dry up completely both are left\u00a0penniless.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the 1970’s and the estate is in shambles, with the local authorities earnestly trying to evict the Beales and condemn the house.\u00a0 Once the press gets the scoop, the public soon\u00a0finds out that the Beale women are close relatives of Jackie O,\u00a0barely existing in unlivable conditions.\u00a0 Jackie, whether out of sheer embarrassment or sincere concern, does eventually\u00a0step up and help to repair the estate.<\/p>\n

There is a fascination with these two women that is beyond the scope of the original documentary.\u00a0 They had money, and opportunity,\u00a0which were carelessly\u00a0lost.\u00a0 Yet they were \u00a0somehow able to\u00a0shut off this reality, and exist on the \u00a0love and compassion for each other.<\/p>\n

Both Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange magically\u00a0capture the intrinsic spirit of each of their characters, which cannot be fully appreciated unless one has viewed the Maysles documentary first.\u00a0\u00a0 Jessica Lange won an Emmy for her role as Big Edith, and Drew Barrymore was nominated for an Emmy as Little Edie, both well\u00a0deserved!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. The fascination with the Beales\u00a0of\u00a0Grey Gardens continues,\u00a0thirty-four years later with HBO’s production of\u00a0 Grey Gardens\u00a0the movie.\u00a0 The film stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore\u00a0as Big Edith and Little Edie Beale, the eccentric mother-daughter aristocrats of East Hampton. Unlike the cinema verite\u00a0documentary, Grey Gardens the film, \u00a0gives \u00a0fans\u00a0a brief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films","category-tv-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}