The Maysles brothers pay visits to Edith Bouvier Beale nearing 80 and her daughter Edie. Reclusive the pair live with cats and raccoons in Grey Gardens a crumbling mansion in East Hampton. Edith is dry and quick-witted - a singer married but later separated a member of high society. Edie is voluble dresses - as she puts it - for combat in tight ensembles that include scarves wrapped around her head. There are hints that Edie came home 24 years before to be cared for rather than to care for her mother. The women address the camera talking over each other moving from the present to events years before. Theyre odd with flinty affection for each other.
Review
I took this out arbitrarily from the library the other night having no idea of the film's cult influence or that it is currently being staged as a musical.(!) Most of the comments here are on target it's moving funny sad and yes a tad exploitive despite the best intentions of the filmmakers. The expanded Chriterion edition is a must for anyone who loved it when it came out.
I think you can also see in little Edie the fall of a class that sort of disappeared you can hear it in old films of Jackie O too people just don't talk like that anymore. I think as a documentary it would have been interesting to get more information about how the home fell into disrepute Old Edie at least still seems aware of what's going on to a certain degree couldn't She see the once spectacular home disintegrating
Yet the film's subject is the life the two women have constructed for themselves now a real life Tennesse Williams one act. Well worth your time.