... 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.

Grey Gardens is an unsettlingly intimate portrait of the daily lives of Big Edie and her daughter Little Edie. Formerly upper-class socialites, we now see this strange pairing proudly living in squalor in a dilapidated East Hampton beach house. Cats roam through empty rooms and plaster crumbles from the walls, while relics from their past fade into the filth.The documentary has a home video feel as the camera lingers on the women, allowing them to create the film through merely living their lives. We are invited into their conversations, whereby they live out their past lives in dramatic prose, often speaking over each other in competitive excitement. The dynamic between the two women is bizarrely intriguing with their constant patterns of reminiscing, arguing, erratically shouting, reconciling and of course singing. This script that they've created initially gives us the impression of an old Hollywood movie, yet as we hear the same lines repeated, it becomes a depressing reminder of the mundane spiral that they've found themselves trapped in.For me, what gives Grey Gardens its truly legendary status is the unforgettable character of Little Edie. She spends most of her day tortured by Grey Gardens and the psychological ennui its come to represent. Yet her enigmatic personality continues to shine through in her passionate bursts into song and witty observations. She has rightly become a cult icon, set apart by her ever-changing outfits made from bedspreads or curtains, her unique mannerisms and her memorable quotes ("I'm just pulverized by this latest thing"... "All I have to do is find this Libra man"). Her highly likable, free spirited character is the film's greatest attraction, while her lost potential is its greatest tragedy.This documentary is disturbing in a way that you may not instantly realise while watching. Certain scenes have inexplicably lingered in my mind - raccoons crawling through their walls, Edie ecstatically dancing around the house to an old record and declaring her love for the cameraman, Edith passively observing the cat urinating on her portrait. However, beyond the uncomfortable Lynchian weirdness there is an undeniable heart at the films core, as we find that we cannot help but relate to these two remarkable women. We are simultaneously disgusted by their lifestyle and endeared by their tenacity to rebel against the status quo of prudish East Hampton, where as Edie remarks, "they can get you for wearing red shoes on a Thursday".Grey Gardens is refreshingly original, clinging to the imagination and cementing the Beales' raggedy place in history.

This is a cringe-worthy effort to try to make interesting the sad lives of two lonely people that had given up on trying to improve their lot in life, preferring instead to look back at a more illustrious past, and the missteps that brought them to their current condition. Sadly, I sincerely believe hat if there had been no connection to Jackie Kennedy, this would never have received the attention, and indeed, critical acclaim it has managed to attract. This distant relationship does not redeem the film in any way.I believe this was the Maysles' first real film, and it shows. The camera work & audio would be passable for a film-school project from the 70's, but just barely. This film could have used a lot more editing - it might have made it more watchable. I watched this film as one would an accident on the highway; with sympathy for those involved & with gratitude that I would soon be gone.Sorry, judging from the other reviews I am in the minority, but I've nothing good to say about it. Awful. Simply awful.

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.