Maybe its just me, but Grey Gardens becomes more prescient with every passing year. The base story – A pair of women are caught in a trap of their own making as life passes them by and their house falls apart around them – feels more and more like an early warning for a stagnant culture and the health of American society. Mother and Daughter Big Edie and Little Edie Beale may be aunt and cousin to Jackie O, but they live in a dilapidated mansion that’s been run over with fleas and wildlife. The house is in such disrepair that the Suffolk County health department are all set to condemn.
It’s not just that they’re so closely related to money and power, but the Beales were once rich on their own. Big Edie was the daughter of Major Bouvier, a high profile New York lawyer, but was all but written out of the will. Her husband, Phelan Beale, was Major Bouvier’s law partner. They bought the house where he left her before divorcing her. Little Edie was a gorgeous entertainer who claimed to have had career opportunities from people like Burt Bacharach, but never pursued them with any commitment. As a failed adult, Little Edie moved in with her mother and they stayed together in a low-income stasis for decades.
Together, they posed each other in a stagnant feedback loop as things fell apart around them. They were caught in a life of “what was” and “what could have been.” Though they perform for the camera like modern day YouTube stars, they’re so stuck in the past they never move forward in life. Sure they always have a boy toy floating around, and sure there are possums running around, but they’re stuck with each other in the same culture they’ve been in for decades and they don’t see any way out of it because they’ve turned into their own feedback loop and suddenly everybody seems to be enjoying the culture that used to exist until it doesn’t resemble anything anymore. Everything is disintegrating and falling apart at the seams!
I just…love this movie.
Grey Gardens airs on Turner Classic Movies on 11/28 at 11pm, and also streams on Film Struck