MOVIE: Grey Gardens (2009)

Debutante life in the 1930’s wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Edith Beale. All she ever wanted was to be a stage performer. Her Manhattan businessman husband Phelan Beale (Ken Howard) has had enough of her weekend party antics at their family retreat in the Hamptons and finally leaves her, sending their two boys to boarding school and dragging their youngest daughter back to the big apple to find a sensible husband and career. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) spends the rest of her days in her beloved East Hampton home, Grey Gardens, reminiscing (but rarely complaining) about the former perfectly grandiose life that the viewer is never sure she had. Based on the true story of Edith Beale and her daughter of the same name (Drew Barrymore) with re-enacted excerpts from the 1975 documentary of the same title, young Edith, better known as “Little Edie” and infamously known as the cousin of Jacquelyn Kennedy Onassis, is soon after her arrival pulled out of Manhattan (where she aspires to become a not-so sensible singer and dancer but ends up in the bed of a married man), and is sent back to Grey Gardens with her lonely, needy mother.

The mother and daughter live for the next 25 years in relative seclusion, with no vocation and therefore no income, spending out their trust funds feeding dozens of cats and sustaining on vanilla ice cream while Grey Gardens falls down around them and becomes infested with rodents. The fact that Bouvier family members are living in squalor makes national headlines forcing the attention of niece and cousin Jacquelyn (excellently portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn) who shares the news that “Ari and I will help you”.

To call this story a “riches to rags” one sounds not only like too much of a cliché, it doesn’t do justice to the magnificence of the characters perfectly depicted by the award winning performers or the allure of attempting to answer the “what is happening to these people” question that looms over the film. From the opening scenes showing the glamour of Little Edie’s Manhattan “coming out” party and the summer move into their well-staffed beach front Hamptons retreat to living in the squalor that precedes the neighbors’ complaints to the Suffolk County Board of Health, this film tickles the nerve, funny bone, senses, and any other body part needing stimulation.

“Grey Gardens” is one of those stories that is intriguing enough in its own right, but from the perspective of a provider that has always been curious about how individuals “end up that way” when presented with the challenges and situations in life that the Beale’s are eventually faced with, it is nothing less than mesmerizing. So the question, “how does one become a crazy cat lady” is put forth, but never completely answered. Was big Edith always crazy? Did the rejection of her husband or the stage trigger something unseen in this film? Was Little Edie psychologically abused leading to her overwhelming co-dependence? This movie equally evokes feelings of disgust (passing off cat food as pâté to the former First Lady) combined with intense compassion for a possibly mentally ill mother and a co-dependent daughter who gets dragged along, and down, for the ride. The most extravagant question is what would medical or psychological intervention have actually done for the Beale women? Edith proclaims perfect happiness with her situation, and Little Edie professes that she is simply doing what any loyal daughter in her situation would do. There was once a homeless person brought into a community hospital emergency room, overly intoxicated and soaked in urine with a bankbook in his pocket showing a $15,000 balance. Like that situation, the questions and (lack of) answers aside, “Grey Gardens’ provokes the viewer to look at their own assumptions and prejudices about socioeconomic class, the stigma of mental illness and how exactly should we confront the eccentricities of “the crazy cat lady”?

“Grey Gardens” rated TV-PG
Reviewer Rating (on a 1-5 scale): 4 delicious boxes of popcorn
HBO Films
Written By: Michael Sucsy and Patricia Rozema
Directed By: Michael Sucsy
Nominated for 17 Primetime Emmy Awards and Winner of Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Best Lead Actress, Miniseries or Movie-Jessica Lange; and Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie-Ken Howard.
Available on DVD