Review of Grey Gardens (2009) by Brian Y — 18 Sep 2008

We all have that stereotype about eccentric old ladies in hats living with cats in decrepit old mansions. In "Grey Gardens", you get to share the daily life of two such women, mother and daughter "Big" and "Little" Edith Beale. Big Edith is a 79 year old, virtually.

Bedridden former singer with her head still spinning with Fred Astaire songs. Little Edith is a 56 year old former clothes model, an old maid still crying over lost opportunities, dreaming of the perfect "Libra husband" and caring only about three things: "the Catholic Church, swimming and dancing", to which one.

Might add the ice cream that brings her to 145 lbs during the course of the documentary. Though they live as complete slobs in a house that looks like the inside of a garbage truck, with so much dirt everywhere that they have to put newspapers on the chairs for the.

Guests to sit on, and raccoons in the attic which they feed with "cat chew" and slices of bread strewn on the floor, and though both of them are well past their.

Prime, it is fascinating how they still manage to look dignified, aristocratic, and even beautiful, like the members of the Bouvier clan they are. But everything.

They may have been, or might have been, seems to fade away before our very eyes, with rooms getting messier.

And dirtier by the minute, old photos getting torn in petty squabbles, and cats using the back of portrait paintings as bathrooms.

"Grey Gardens" is all about faded glory and wasted dreams, but however objectively pathetic these two ladies may have been (both have died since), I never pitied them or felt sorry for them. On the contrary, they almost seemed to have everything they cared about - old records to listen to, the ocean to swim in and a balcony to sunbathe on - as if they were living museum pieces locked in a time loop that could go on forever.